# Strip leading and trailing white space (new line inclusive).
trim(){
    [[ "$1" =~ [^[:space:]](.*[^[:space:]])? ]]
    printf "%s" "$BASH_REMATCH"
}

OR

# Strip leading white space (new line inclusive).
ltrim(){
    [[ "$1" =~ [^[:space:]].* ]]
    printf "%s" "$BASH_REMATCH"
}

# Strip trailing white space (new line inclusive).
rtrim(){
    [[ "$1" =~ .*[^[:space:]] ]]
    printf "%s" "$BASH_REMATCH"
}

# Strip leading and trailing white space (new line inclusive).
trim(){
    printf "%s" "$(rtrim "$(ltrim "$1")")"
}

OR

# Strip leading and trailing specified characters.  ex: str=$(trim "$str" $'\n a')
trim(){
    if [ "$2" ]; then
        trim_chrs="$2"
    else
        trim_chrs="[:space:]"
    fi

    [[ "$1" =~ ^["$trim_chrs"]*(.*[^"$trim_chrs"])["$trim_chrs"]*$ ]]
    printf "%s" "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
}

OR

# Strip leading specified characters.  ex: str=$(ltrim "$str" $'\n a')
ltrim(){
    if [ "$2" ]; then
        trim_chrs="$2"
    else
        trim_chrs="[:space:]"
    fi

    [[ "$1" =~ ^["$trim_chrs"]*(.*[^"$trim_chrs"]) ]]
    printf "%s" "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
}

# Strip trailing specified characters.  ex: str=$(rtrim "$str" $'\n a')
rtrim(){
    if [ "$2" ]; then
        trim_chrs="$2"
    else
        trim_chrs="[:space:]"
    fi

    [[ "$1" =~ ^(.*[^"$trim_chrs"])["$trim_chrs"]*$ ]]
    printf "%s" "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
}

# Strip leading and trailing specified characters.  ex: str=$(trim "$str" $'\n a')
trim(){
    printf "%s" "$(rtrim "$(ltrim "$1" "$2")" "$2")"
}

OR

建立在moskit的expr soulution…

# Strip leading and trailing white space (new line inclusive).
trim(){
    printf "%s" "`expr "$1" : "^[[:space:]]*\(.*[^[:space:]]\)[[:space:]]*$"`"
}

OR

# Strip leading white space (new line inclusive).
ltrim(){
    printf "%s" "`expr "$1" : "^[[:space:]]*\(.*[^[:space:]]\)"`"
}

# Strip trailing white space (new line inclusive).
rtrim(){
    printf "%s" "`expr "$1" : "^\(.*[^[:space:]]\)[[:space:]]*$"`"
}

# Strip leading and trailing white space (new line inclusive).
trim(){
    printf "%s" "$(rtrim "$(ltrim "$1")")"
}

赋值函数忽略前导和后面的空格，因此可以用于修剪:

$ var=`echo '   hello'`; echo $var
hello

#!/bin/bash

function trim
{
    typeset trimVar
    eval trimVar="\${$1}"
    read trimVar << EOTtrim
    $trimVar
EOTtrim
    eval $1=\$trimVar
}

# Note that the parameter to the function is the NAME of the variable to trim, 
# not the variable contents.  However, the contents are trimmed.


# Example of use:
while read aLine
do
    trim aline
    echo "[${aline}]"
done < info.txt



# File info.txt contents:
# ------------------------------
# ok  hello there    $
#    another  line   here     $
#and yet another   $
#  only at the front$
#$



# Output:
#[ok  hello there]
#[another  line   here]
#[and yet another]
#[only at the front]
#[]

"trim"函数删除所有水平空白:

ltrim () {
    if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then cat; else printf -- '%s\n' "$@"; fi | perl -pe 's/^\h+//g'
    return $?
}

rtrim () {
    if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then cat; else printf -- '%s\n' "$@"; fi | perl -pe 's/\h+$//g'
    return $?
}

trim () {
    ltrim "$@" | rtrim
    return $?
}

我见过脚本只是使用变量赋值来完成工作:

$ xyz=`echo -e 'foo \n bar'`
$ echo $xyz
foo bar

空格会自动合并和修剪。必须小心shell元字符(潜在的注入风险)。

我还建议在shell条件句中使用双引号变量替换:

if [ -n "$var" ]; then

因为变量中的-o或其他内容可能会修改测试参数。

还有一个单元测试的解决方案，它从stdin中删除$IFS，并适用于任何输入分隔符(甚至$'\0'):

ltrim()
{
    # Left-trim $IFS from stdin as a single line
    # $1: Line separator (default NUL)
    local trimmed
    while IFS= read -r -d "${1-}" -u 9
    do
        if [ -n "${trimmed+defined}" ]
        then
            printf %s "$REPLY"
        else
            printf %s "${REPLY#"${REPLY%%[!$IFS]*}"}"
        fi
        printf "${1-\x00}"
        trimmed=true
    done 9<&0

    if [[ $REPLY ]]
    then
        # No delimiter at last line
        if [ -n "${trimmed+defined}" ]
        then
            printf %s "$REPLY"
        else
            printf %s "${REPLY#"${REPLY%%[!$IFS]*}"}"
        fi
    fi
}

rtrim()
{
    # Right-trim $IFS from stdin as a single line
    # $1: Line separator (default NUL)
    local previous last
    while IFS= read -r -d "${1-}" -u 9
    do
        if [ -n "${previous+defined}" ]
        then
            printf %s "$previous"
            printf "${1-\x00}"
        fi
        previous="$REPLY"
    done 9<&0

    if [[ $REPLY ]]
    then
        # No delimiter at last line
        last="$REPLY"
        printf %s "$previous"
        if [ -n "${previous+defined}" ]
        then
            printf "${1-\x00}"
        fi
    else
        last="$previous"
    fi

    right_whitespace="${last##*[!$IFS]}"
    printf %s "${last%$right_whitespace}"
}

trim()
{
    # Trim $IFS from individual lines
    # $1: Line separator (default NUL)
    ltrim ${1+"$@"} | rtrim ${1+"$@"}
}