ltrim

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    ltrim — Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string

    Description

    ltrim(string $string, string $characters = " \n\r\t\v\x00"): string

    Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string.

    Parameters

    string

    The input string.

    characters

    You can also specify the characters you want to strip, by means of the characters parameter. Simply list all characters that you want to be stripped. With .. you can specify a range of characters.

    Return Values

    This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the beginning of string. Without the second parameter, ltrim() will strip these characters:

    • " " (ASCII 32 (0x20)), an ordinary space.
    • "\t" (ASCII 9 (0x09)), a tab.
    • "\n" (ASCII 10 (0x0A)), a new line (line feed).
    • "\r" (ASCII 13 (0x0D)), a carriage return.
    • "\0" (ASCII 0 (0x00)), the NUL-byte.
    • "\v" (ASCII 11 (0x0B)), a vertical tab.

    Examples

    Example #1 Usage example of ltrim()

    <?php

    $text     = "\t\tThese are a few words :) ... ";
    $binary = "\x09Example string\x0A";
    $hello = "Hello World";
    var_dump($text, $binary, $hello);

    print     "\n";


    $trimmed = ltrim($text);
    var_dump($trimmed);

    $trimmed = ltrim($text, " \t.");
    var_dump($trimmed);

    $trimmed = ltrim($hello, "Hdle");
    var_dump($trimmed);

    // trim the ASCII control characters at the beginning of $binary
    // (from 0 to 31 inclusive)
    $clean = ltrim($binary, "\x00..\x1F");
    var_dump($clean);

    ?>

    The above example will output:

    string(32) "        These are a few words :) ...  "
string(16) "    Example string
"
string(11) "Hello World"

string(30) "These are a few words :) ...  "
string(30) "These are a few words :) ...  "
string(7) "o World"
string(15) "Example string
"

    See Also

    • trim() - Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string
    • rtrim() - Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the end of a string

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    User Contributed Notes 3 notes

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    84
    tavi undersc 10 from yahoocom
    8 years ago
    When using a $character_mask the trimming stops at the first character that is not on that mask.

    So in the $string = "Hello world" example with $character_mask = "Hdle", ltrim($hello, $character_mask) goes like this:
    1. Check H from "Hello world" => it is in the $character_mask, so remove it
    2. Check e from "ello world" => it is in the $character_mask, so remove it
    3. Check l from "llo world" => it is in the $character_mask, so remove it
    4. Check l from "lo world" => it is in the $character_mask, so remove it
    5. Check o from "o world" => it is NOT in the $character_mask, exit the function

    Remaining string is "o world".

    I hope it helps someone as I had a confusing moment with this function.
    up
    23
    Usamah M dot Ali (usamah1228 at gmail dot com)
    16 years ago
    For those who use right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, etc., it's worth mentioning that ltrim() (which stands for left trim) & rtrim() (which stands for right trim) DO NOT work contextually. The nomenclature is rather semantically incorrect. So in an RTL script, ltrim() will trim text from the right direction (i.e. beginning of RTL strings), and rtrim() will trim text from the left direction (i.e. end of RTL strings).
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    4
    dzek dot remove_this at dzek dot eu
    13 years ago
    Guys, if += 0 is producing wrong values sometimes, and preg_replace is cpu consuming, then just stick to the main function described on that page, and use:
    <?php
    $value     = ltrim($value, '0');
    ?>
    should be the fastest and most reliable.
    I think all those comments can be misleading for begginers checking this page - it's sort of using magic tricks to reinvent the wheel.
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