As perlfaq4[1] shows: > You can do that with a pair of substitutions: > s/^\s+//; > s/\s+$//; It then notes, in an understated ma

As perlfaq4[1] shows: > You can do that with a pair of substitutions: > s/^\s+//; > s/\s+$//; It then notes, in an understated manner: > You can also write that as a single substitution, > although it turns out the combined statement is > slower than the separate ones. That might not > matter to you, though: > s/^\s+|\s+$//g; [1]: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq4.html#How-do-I-strip-blank-space-from-the-beginning%2fend-of-a-string%3f http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq4.html#How-do-I-strip-blank-s...