要从左到第一个单词删除空格和制表符，输入:

echo "     This is a test" | sed "s/^[ \t]*//"

cyberciti.biz /技巧/ delete-leading-spaces-from-front-of-each-word.html

# Trim whitespace from both ends of specified parameter

trim () {
    read -rd '' $1 <<<"${!1}"
}

# Unit test for trim()

test_trim () {
    local foo="$1"
    trim foo
    test "$foo" = "$2"
}

test_trim hey hey &&
test_trim '  hey' hey &&
test_trim 'ho  ' ho &&
test_trim 'hey ho' 'hey ho' &&
test_trim '  hey  ho  ' 'hey  ho' &&
test_trim $'\n\n\t hey\n\t ho \t\n' $'hey\n\t ho' &&
test_trim $'\n' '' &&
test_trim '\n' '\n' &&
echo passed

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 ${1+"$@"}
}

我发现我需要从混乱的sdiff输出中添加一些代码来清理它:

sdiff -s column1.txt column2.txt | grep -F '<' | cut -f1 -d"<" > c12diff.txt 
sed -n 1'p' c12diff.txt | sed 's/ *$//g' | tr -d '\n' | tr -d '\t'

这将删除尾随空格和其他不可见字符。

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Bash的扩展模式匹配功能(shopt -s extglob)，你可以这样使用:

修剪{# # * ()}

删除任意数量的前导空格。