php man page for ltrim

LTRIM(3)								 1								  LTRIM(3)

ltrim - Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string

SYNOPSIS
       string ltrim (string  $str, [string  $character_mask])

DESCRIPTION
	Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string.

PARAMETERS
	      o $str
		- The input string.

	      o $character_mask
		-  You	can  also  specify the characters you want to strip, by means of the $character_mask parameter. Simply list all characters
		that you want to be stripped. With .. you can specify a range of characters.

RETURN VALUES
	This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the beginning of $str. Without the  second  parameter,  ltrim(3)  will  strip
       these characters:

	      o " " (ASCII
		32 ( 0x20)), an ordinary space.

	      o "	" (ASCII
		9 ( 0x09)), a tab.

	      o "
" (ASCII
		10 ( 0x0A)), a new line (line feed).

	      o "
" (ASCII
		13 ( 0x0D)), a carriage return.

	      o "" (ASCII
		0 ( 0x00)), the NUL-byte.

	      o "x0B" (ASCII
		11 ( 0x0B)), a vertical tab.

EXAMPLES
       Example #1

	      Usage example of ltrim(3)

	      <?php

	      $text = "		These are a few words :) ...  ";
	      $binary = "x09Example stringx0A";
	      $hello  = "Hello World";
	      var_dump($text, $binary, $hello);

	      print "
";

	      $trimmed = ltrim($text);
	      var_dump($trimmed);

	      $trimmed = ltrim($text, " 	.");
	      var_dump($trimmed);

	      $trimmed = ltrim($hello, "Hdle");
	      var_dump($trimmed);

	      // trim the ASCII control characters at the beginning of $binary
	      // (from 0 to 31 inclusive)
	      $clean = ltrim($binary, "x00..x1F");
	      var_dump($clean);

	      ?>

	      The above example will output:

	      string(32) "	  These are a few words :) ...	"
	      string(16) "    Example string
	      "
	      string(11) "Hello World"

	      string(30) "These are a few words :) ...	"
	      string(30) "These are a few words :) ...	"
	      string(7) "o World"
	      string(15) "Example string
	      "

SEE ALSO
       trim(3), rtrim(3).

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