Basic PHP Programming Question:

There are 4 PHP functions you can use remove white space characters from the beginning and/or the end of a string:

► trim() - Remove white space characters from the beginning and the end of a string.
► ltrim() - Remove white space characters from the beginning of a string.
► rtrim() - Remove white space characters from the end of a string.
► chop() - Same as rtrim().

White space characters are defined as:

► " " (ASCII 32 (0x20)), an ordinary space.
► " " (ASCII 9 (0x09)), a tab.
► " " (ASCII 10 (0x0A)), a new line (line feed).
► " " (ASCII 13 (0x0D)), a carriage return.
► "" (ASCII 0 (0x00)), the NULL-byte.
► "x0B" (ASCII 11 (0x0B)), a vertical tab.
Here is a PHP script example of trimming strings:
<?php
$text = " Hello world! ";
$leftTrimmed = ltrim($text);
$rightTrimmed = rtrim($text);
$bothTrimmed = trim($text);
print("leftTrimmed = ($leftTrimmed) ");
print("rightTrimmed = ($rightTrimmed) ");
print("bothTrimmed = ($bothTrimmed) ");
?>

This script will print:
<pre>leftTrimmed = (Hello world! )
rightTrimmed = ( Hello world!)
bothTrimmed = (Hello world!)</pre>