Trimming (computer programming)

In programming, trim or strip is a string manipulation function which removes leading and trailing whitespace from a string.

For example, in Python:

'  this is a test  '.strip()

will return the string:

'this is a test'

Other varients of the trim function which are available in some languages include:

• trimming only the beginning or the end of the string
• allowing the selection of which whitespace (or other) characters to trim
• returning a special result if no characters are left to be returned after the trim operation.

Examples

Java:

string.trim() 

Python:

string.strip()

C#:

String.Trim()

Apache Java libraries:

org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils.strip(string)