How trim?

[Alex Tweedly]

Bob Warren wrote:

>
> Alex:
>
> I couldn't seem to make your first suggestions for L and R trims work. 
> Would you mind spelling out some example routines for me?

I've combined Mark Smith's versions, an alternate for one of his and 
mine all in the following script.
Beware there are subtle differences in the results from the various 
solutions presented (these here, and Thomas's regex-based ones).  

The original question actually said "remove blanks", and mentioned the 
LTRIM$ etc. functions in Basic.

In VB (I believe), LTRIM removes *only* spaces.
In other versions of Basics (and also in PHP, Python, Perl, etc.) Ltrim 
(or equivalents) remove all whitespace characters (usually, spaces and 
TABs).

So if that subtle difference matters, be careful which one you use.

> --> all handlers
>
> function trimL aString
>    return char offset(word 1 of aString, aString) to -1 of aString
> end trimL
>
> function trimR aString
>   return  char 1 to  length(word 1 to -1 of aString) + (offset(word  1 
> of aString, aString) - 1) of aString
> end trimR
>
> function trimRAlternate aString
>   return  char 1 to (offset(word  1 of aString, aString) - 1) of 
> aString & word 1 to -1 of aString
> end trimRAlternate
>
>
>
> function agttrimL aString
>     return char 1 to -2 of (word 1 to -1 of (aString & "="))      -- 
> could have been any non-space character
> end agttrimL
>
> function agttrimR aString
>   return char 2 to -1 of (word 1 to -1 of ("=" & aString))
> end agttrimR
>

-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net



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