How do I remove white space in a Perl string?

Question

If I declared a variable $myString with the value \'3 \' (notice the white space). Is there any function to remove the white space for the return v

Answer 1

$myString =~ s/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/$1/;

This will trim whitespace from both sides.

from just the right:

$myString =~ s/\s*$//;

Answer 2

sub trim
{
    my $str = $_[0];
    $str=~s/^\s+|\s+$//g;
    return $str;
}

print trim(" 4 ");

Answer 3

Here's a subroutine that will allow you to remove leading and trailing whitespace from a string while also removing excesss whitespaces from within the string and replacing it with a single spaces.

-- routine

sub unspace {
    my @stringer = @_ ? @_ : $;
    $ = join( ' ', split(' ')) for @stringer;
    return wantarray ? @stringer : "@stringer";
}

-- usage

$MySpacedString = ' String with tabs    double-spaces  and other whitespace         areas.  ';
$MyCleanString = unspace($MySpacedString);

Answer 4

If you are willing to use a CPAN module then String::Util, or the somewhat more economical Text::Trim would be possible choices.

Trimming strings is one of those bike sheds that everyone likes to build! See the short perlmaven tutorial by @szabgab for a small sample of TIMTOWDI fun.

Answer 5

sub trim($)
{
    my $string = shift;
    $string =~ s/^\s+//;
    $string =~ s/\s+$//;
    return $string;
}


print trim($myString)

Answer 6

If your white space is just spaces, then the following code will remove all spaces:

$mystring =~ tr/ //ds;