当IFS变量被设置为其他变量时，我需要从脚本中删除空白。依赖Perl实现了这个目的:

# trim() { echo $1; } # This doesn't seem to work, as it's affected by IFS

trim() { echo "$1" | perl -p -e 's/^\s+|\s+$//g'; }

strings="after --> , <-- before,  <-- both -->  "

OLD_IFS=$IFS
IFS=","
for str in ${strings}; do
  str=$(trim "${str}")
  echo "str= '${str}'"
done
IFS=$OLD_IFS

使用AWK:

echo $var | awk '{gsub(/^ +| +$/,"")}1'

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。

Trim()删除空白(以及制表符、不可打印字符;为了简单起见，我正在考虑使用空格)。我的解决方案是:

var="$(hg st -R "$path")" # I often like to enclose shell output in double quotes
var="$(echo "${var}" | sed "s/\(^ *\| *\$\)//g")" # This is my suggestion
if [ -n "$var" ]; then
 echo "[${var}]"
fi

sed命令只修剪开头和结尾的空白，但它也可以被输送到第一个命令，导致:

var="$(hg st -R "$path" | sed "s/\(^ *\| *\$\)//g")"
if [ -n "$var" ]; then
 echo "[${var}]"
fi

要做到这一点，最简单和最便宜的方法是利用回声忽略空格。所以，就用

dest=$(echo $source)

例如:

> VAR="   Hello    World   "
> echo "x${VAR}x"
x   Hello    World   x
> TRIMD=$(echo $VAR)
> echo "x${TRIMD}x"
xHello Worldx

注意，这也将多个空格合并为一个空格。

从Bash指南的通配符部分

在参数展开中使用extglob

 #Turn on extended globbing  
shopt -s extglob  
 #Trim leading and trailing whitespace from a variable  
x=${x##+([[:space:]])}; x=${x%%+([[:space:]])}  
 #Turn off extended globbing  
shopt -u extglob  

下面是相同的函数封装在函数中(注意:需要引用传递给函数的输入字符串):

trim() {
    # Determine if 'extglob' is currently on.
    local extglobWasOff=1
    shopt extglob >/dev/null && extglobWasOff=0 
    (( extglobWasOff )) && shopt -s extglob # Turn 'extglob' on, if currently turned off.
    # Trim leading and trailing whitespace
    local var=$1
    var=${var##+([[:space:]])}
    var=${var%%+([[:space:]])}
    (( extglobWasOff )) && shopt -u extglob # If 'extglob' was off before, turn it back off.
    echo -n "$var"  # Output trimmed string.
}

用法:

string="   abc def ghi  ";
#need to quote input-string to preserve internal white-space if any
trimmed=$(trim "$string");  
echo "$trimmed";

如果我们将函数更改为在subshell中执行，我们不必担心检查extglob的当前shell选项，我们可以只设置它而不影响当前shell。这极大地简化了函数。我还更新了位置参数“就地”，所以我甚至不需要一个局部变量

trim() {
    shopt -s extglob
    set -- "${1##+([[:space:]])}"
    printf "%s" "${1%%+([[:space:]])}" 
}

so:

$ s=$'\t\n \r\tfoo  '
$ shopt -u extglob
$ shopt extglob
extglob         off
$ printf ">%q<\n" "$s" "$(trim "$s")"
>$'\t\n \r\tfoo  '<
>foo<
$ shopt extglob
extglob         off