PHP: Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string

Description

string trim ( string $str [, string $charlist ] )

This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the beginning and end of str . Without the second parameter, trim() will strip these characters:

" " (ASCII 32 (0x20)), an ordinary space.
"\t" (ASCII 9 (0x09)), a tab.
"\n" (ASCII 10 (0x0A)), a new line (line feed).
"\r" (ASCII 13 (0x0D)), a carriage return.
"\0" (ASCII 0 (0x00)), the NUL-byte.
"\x0B" (ASCII 11 (0x0B)), a vertical tab.

Parameters

str: The string that will be trimmed.
charlist: Optionally, the stripped characters can also be specified using the charlist parameter. Simply list all characters that you want to be stripped. With .. you can specify a range of characters.

Return Values

The trimmed string.

ChangeLog

Version Description

4.1.0 The optional charlist parameter was added.

Examples

Example #1 Usage example of trim()


<?php



$text   = "\t\tThese are a few words :) ...  ";

$binary = "\x09Example string\x0A";

$hello  = "Hello World";

var_dump($text, $binary, $hello);



print "\n";



$trimmed = trim($text);

var_dump($trimmed);



$trimmed = trim($text, " \t.");

var_dump($trimmed);



$trimmed = trim($hello, "Hdle");

var_dump($trimmed);



// trim the ASCII control characters at the beginning and end of $binary

// (from 0 to 31 inclusive)

$clean = trim($binary, "\x00..\x1F");

var_dump($clean);



?>

The above example will output:

string(32) "        These are a few words :) ...  "
string(16) "    Example string
"
string(11) "Hello World"

string(28) "These are a few words :) ..."
string(24) "These are a few words :)"
string(5) "o Wor"
string(14) "Example string"

Example #2 Trimming array values with trim()


<?php

function trim_value(&$value) 

{ 

    $value = trim($value); 

}



$fruit = array('apple','banana ', ' cranberry ');

var_dump($fruit);



array_walk($fruit, 'trim_value');

var_dump($fruit);



?>