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

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

这就是我所做的，结果完美而简单:

the_string="        test"
the_string=`echo $the_string`
echo "$the_string"

输出:

test

这里有一个trim()函数，用于修整和规范化空白

#!/bin/bash
function trim {
    echo $*
}

echo "'$(trim "  one   two    three  ")'"
# 'one two three'

还有一种使用正则表达式的变体。

#!/bin/bash
function trim {
    local trimmed="$@"
    if [[ "$trimmed" =~ " *([^ ].*[^ ]) *" ]]
    then 
        trimmed=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
    fi
    echo "$trimmed"
}

echo "'$(trim "  one   two    three  ")'"
# 'one   two    three'

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

这将删除字符串中的所有空格，

 VAR2="${VAR2//[[:space:]]/}"

/替换字符串中第一次出现的空格和//所有出现的空格。也就是说，所有的空格都被- nothing取代