ArtLung Blog

www.flickr.com
A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr

Joe Crawford lives in Simi Valley, CA USA. He makes mistakes.

JavaScript trim() function

it’s hokey, but it’s a nice basis for some other things. why didn’t i go looking for this last night when i was slamming my head against stupid code? ugh.

function trim(str)
{
    while(''+str.charAt(0)==' ') {
        str=str.substring(1,str.length);
    } 
    while(''+str.charAt(str.length-1)==' ') {
        str=str.substring(0,str.length-1);
    }
    return str;
}

seven comments...

if i’m not mistaken, that’s for trimming preceding spaces, right? darn the spaces! darn em!

I am starting a pretty big AJAX project, and we are trying to decide to use a ‘framework’ vs straight Javascript. I am pushing for straight JS but the team is leaning towards the frameworks, which are admittedly easier to use. The problem I am running into is the lack of libraries in JS. You miss the little things like string.trim() and string.format(). Next week I am going to look into some various utility and string libs, if I find anything decent I’ll shoot you a link.

Nate, the code strips space characters from the beginning then the end of a string, then returns the result.

Sassy, I swear I was just reading about an effort to build something like PEAR or CPAN but for JavaScript. Somehow though, in my bleary eyed morning state, I can’t think of either a url or a way to search for it that works.

Not enough caffiene, perhaps!

Depending on your version of JavaScript (i.e., regular expression support), you may also be able to do:

function TrimString(str) {
	str = str.replace(/^[ ]+(.*)$/, '$1');  // Trims leading spaces
	str = str.replace(/^(.*)[ ]+$/, '$1');  // Trims trailing spaces
	return str;
}

I like your javascript trim function. I have seen a number of similar code using regular expressions and tried some of them. They all work but yours is another refreshing take on ‘trim’.
That’s the beauty of programming – so many ways to solve one problem.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This post accepts webmentions. If you link to and write about this on your website, enter the web address of your post below: