debian man page for text::trim

Text::Trim(3pm) 					User Contributed Perl Documentation					   Text::Trim(3pm)

NAME
       Text::Trim - remove leading and/or trailing whitespace from strings

VERSION
       version 1.02

SYNOPSIS
	   use Text::Trim;

	   $text = "	important data
";
	   $data = trim $text;
	   # now $data contains "important data" and $text is unchanged

	   # or:
	   trim $text; # work in-place, $text now contains "important data"

	   @lines = <STDIN>;
	   rtrim @lines; # remove trailing whitespace from all lines

	   # Alternatively:
	   @lines = rtrim <STDIN>;

	   # Or even:
	   while (<STDIN>) {
	       trim; # Change $_ in place
	       # ...
	   }

DESCRIPTION
       This module provides functions for removing leading and/or trailing whitespace from strings. It is basically a wrapper around some simple
       regexes with a flexible context-based interface.

EXPORTS
       All functions are exported by default.

CONTEXT HANDLING
   void context
       Functions called in void context change their arguments in-place

	   trim(@strings); # All strings in @strings are trimmed in-place

	   ltrim($text); # remove leading whitespace on $text

	   rtrim; # remove trailing whitespace on $_

       No changes are made to arguments in non-void contexts.

   list context
       Values passed in are changed and returned without affecting the originals.

	   @result = trim(@strings); # @strings is unchanged

	   @result = rtrim; # @result contains rtrimmed $_

	   ($result) = ltrim(@strings); # like $result = ltrim($strings[0]);

   scalar context
       As list context but multiple arguments are stringified before being returned.  Single arguments are unaffected.	This means that under
       these circumstances, the value of $" ($LIST_SEPARATOR) is used to join the values. If you don't want this, make sure you only use single
       arguments when calling in scalar context.

	   @strings = ("	hello
", "	there
");
	   $trimmed = trim(@strings);
	   # $trimmed = "hello there"

	   local $" = ', ';
	   $trimmed = trim(@strings);
	   # Now $trimmed = "hello, there"

	   $trimmed = rtrim;
	   # $trimmed = $_ minus trailing whitespace

   Undefined values
       If any of the functions are called with undefined values, the behaviour is in general to pass them through unchanged. When stringifying a
       list (calling in scalar context with multiple arguments) undefined elements are excluded, but if all elements are undefined then the return
       value is also undefined.

	   $foo = trim(undef);	      # $foo is undefined
	   $foo = trim(undef, undef); # $foo is undefined
	   @foo = trim(undef, undef); # @foo contains 2 undefined values
	   trim(@foo)		      # @foo still contains 2 undefined values
	   $foo = trim('', undef);    # $foo is ''

FUNCTIONS
   trim
       Removes leading and trailing whitespace from all arguments, or $_ if none are provided.

   rtrim
       Like trim() but removes only trailing (right) whitespace.

   ltrim
       Like trim() but removes only leading (left) whitespace.

UNICODE
       Because this module is implemented using perl regular expressions, it is capable of recognising and removing unicode whitespace characters
       (such as non-breaking spaces) from scalars with the utf8 flag on. See Encode for details about the utf8 flag.

       Note that this only applies in the case of perl versions after 5.8.0 or so.

SEE ALSO
       Brent B. Powers' String::Strip performs a similar function in XS.

AUTHOR
       Matt Lawrence <mattlaw@cpan.org>

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
       Terrence Brannon <metaperl@gmail.com> for bringing my attention to String::Strip and suggesting documentation changes.

perl v5.10.1							    2010-06-07							   Text::Trim(3pm)