Trim string in JavaScript?

Question

How do I trim a string in JavaScript? That is, how do I remove all whitespace from the beginning and the end of the string in JavaScript?

Answer 1

Flagrant Badassery has 11 different trims with benchmark information:

http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/faster-trim-javascript

Non-surprisingly regexp-based are slower than traditional loop.

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Here is my personal one. This code is old! I wrote it for JavaScript1.1 and Netscape 3 and it has been only slightly updated since. (Original used String.charAt)

/**
 *  Trim string. Actually trims all control characters.
 *  Ignores fancy Unicode spaces. Forces to string.
 */
function trim(str) {
    str = str.toString();
    var begin = 0;
    var end = str.length - 1;
    while (begin <= end && str.charCodeAt(begin) < 33) { ++begin; }
    while (end > begin && str.charCodeAt(end) < 33) { --end; }
    return str.substr(begin, end - begin + 1);
}