How to delete leading empty space in a SQL Database Table using MS SQL Server Management Studio

Question

I imported an Excel sheet with countries into a database table.

Unfortunately all rows have some leading empty space.

So, how can I delete these empty spaces

Answer 1

This will remove leading and trailing spaces

Update tablename set fieldName = ltrim(rtrim(fieldName));

some versions of SQL Support

Update tablename set fieldName = trim(fieldName);

If you just want to remove leading

update tablename set fieldName = LTRIM(fieldName);