#!/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]
#[]

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 ${1+"$@"}
}

你可以使用tr删除换行符:

var=`hg st -R "$path" | tr -d '\n'`
if [ -n $var ]; then
    echo $var
done

Use:

trim() {
    local orig="$1"
    local trmd=""
    while true;
    do
        trmd="${orig#[[:space:]]}"
        trmd="${trmd%[[:space:]]}"
        test "$trmd" = "$orig" && break
        orig="$trmd"
    done
    printf -- '%s\n' "$trmd"
}

它适用于各种空格，包括换行符， 不需要修改shop。 它保留内部空白，包括换行符。

单元测试(用于手动检查):

#!/bin/bash

. trim.sh

enum() {
    echo "   a b c"
    echo "a b c   "
    echo "  a b c "
    echo " a b c  "
    echo " a  b c  "
    echo " a  b  c  "
    echo " a      b  c  "
    echo "     a      b  c  "
    echo "     a  b  c  "
    echo " a  b  c      "
    echo " a  b  c      "
    echo " a N b  c  "
    echo "N a N b  c  "
    echo " Na  b  c  "
    echo " a  b  c N "
    echo " a  b  c  N"
}

xcheck() {
    local testln result
    while IFS='' read testln;
    do
        testln=$(tr N '\n' <<<"$testln")
        echo ": ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ :" >&2
        result="$(trim "$testln")"
        echo "testln='$testln'" >&2
        echo "result='$result'" >&2
    done
}

enum | xcheck

var='   a b c   '
trimmed=$(echo $var)

Use:

var=`expr "$var" : "^\ *\(.*[^ ]\)\ *$"`

它去掉了开头和结尾的空格，我认为这是最基本的解决方案。不是Bash内置的，但'expr'是coreutils的一部分，所以至少不需要像sed或AWK这样的独立实用程序。