trim()

trim() — Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string.

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

Signature

trim(string $string, string $characters = " \n\r\t\v\x00"): string

Parameters

ParameterTypeWhat it takes
$stringstringThe string that will be trimmed.
$charactersstringOptionally, the stripped characters can also be specified using the characters parameter. Simply list all characters that need to be stripped. With .. it is possible to specify an incrementing range of characters.

Return value

The trimmed string.

Example

A runnable snippet:

$text = "\t\tThese are a few words :) ... "; $binary = "\x09Example string\x0A"; $hello = "Hello World"; var_dump($text, $binary, $hello); print "\n"; $trimmed = trim($text); var_dump($trimmed); $trimmed = trim($text, " \t."); var_dump($trimmed); $trimmed = trim($hello, "Hdle"); var_dump($trimmed); $trimmed = trim($hello, 'HdWr'); var_dump($trimmed); // trim the ASCII control characters at the beginning and end of $binary // (from 0 to 31 inclusive) $clean = trim($binary, "\x00..\x1F"); var_dump($clean);

Output:

string(32) " These are a few words :) ... " string(16) " Example string " string(11) "Hello World" string(28) "These are a few words :) ..." string(24) "These are a few words :)" string(5) "o Wor" string(9) "ello Worl" string(14) "Example string"

See also

ltrim(), rtrim(), str_replace()

All PHP 8.5 built-in functions

Reference card built from the PHP manual page trim() (PHP documentation, CC BY 3.0). The page is generated from the manual, so the wording of the parameter and return value text follows php.net.