What's the best way to trim std::string?

Question

I\'m currently using the following code to right-trim all the std::strings in my programs:

std::string s;
s.erase(s.find_last_not_of(\" \\n\\r\\         


        

Answer 1

Contributing my solution to the noise. trim defaults to creating a new string and returning the modified one while trim_in_place modifies the string passed to it. The trim function supports c++11 move semantics.

#include 

// modifies input string, returns input

std::string& trim_left_in_place(std::string& str) {
    size_t i = 0;
    while(i < str.size() && isspace(str[i])) { ++i; };
    return str.erase(0, i);
}

std::string& trim_right_in_place(std::string& str) {
    size_t i = str.size();
    while(i > 0 && isspace(str[i - 1])) { --i; };
    return str.erase(i, str.size());
}

std::string& trim_in_place(std::string& str) {
    return trim_left_in_place(trim_right_in_place(str));
}

// returns newly created strings

std::string trim_right(std::string str) {
    return trim_right_in_place(str);
}

std::string trim_left(std::string str) {
    return trim_left_in_place(str);
}

std::string trim(std::string str) {
    return trim_left_in_place(trim_right_in_place(str));
}

#include 

int main() {

    std::string s1(" \t\r\n  ");
    std::string s2("  \r\nc");
    std::string s3("c \t");
    std::string s4("  \rc ");

    assert(trim(s1) == "");
    assert(trim(s2) == "c");
    assert(trim(s3) == "c");
    assert(trim(s4) == "c");

    assert(s1 == " \t\r\n  ");
    assert(s2 == "  \r\nc");
    assert(s3 == "c \t");
    assert(s4 == "  \rc ");

    assert(trim_in_place(s1) == "");
    assert(trim_in_place(s2) == "c");
    assert(trim_in_place(s3) == "c");
    assert(trim_in_place(s4) == "c");

    assert(s1 == "");
    assert(s2 == "c");
    assert(s3 == "c");
    assert(s4 == "c");  
}