Snippets are for useful idioms and tricks. I use Code Catacombs for code that I found fun and interesting but which I am unwilling to package and support. Code Catacombs also works for applications and PerlMonks specific stuff. Cool Uses For Perl seems to be for small little applications that people found cool.

The only one which I think would overlap CPAN much is Code Catacombs. And given a choice, I would prefer that people use CPAN...

sub rtrim {
    # Right trim spaces
    my @out=@_;
    for (@out) {
        $_ = reverse $_;
        s/^\s+//;
        $_ = reverse $_;
    }
    return wantarray ? @out : $out[0];
}

sub ltrim {
    # Left trim spaces
    my @out=@_;
    for (@out) {
        s/^\s+//;
    }
    return wantarray ? @out : $out[0];
}

sub trim {
    # Trim extra spaces from both left and right
    my @out=@_;
    for (@out) {
        s/^\s+//;
        s/\s+$//;
    }
    return wantarray ? @out : $out[0];
}

sub trimall {
    # Trim all extra spaces from both left and right and middle
    my @out=@_;
    for (@out) {
        $_= join ' ',split;
    }
    return wantarray ? @out : $out[0];
}
[download]

..:::::: aquacade ::::::..

I remain unconvinced. For pure Perl modules on CPAN I have had good luck under Windows just downloading, untarring, and then copying them manually. Other than the need to find something that will handle .tar.gz files on Windows, I don't see what is gained by having such modules on PerlMonks.

As for the examples that you give, your routines make perfect sense if you are working in a language like VB with poor string handling capability. But in Perl I, and I think most experienced Perl developers, find it much easier and more reasonable to just inline the regular expressions in question where needed.

A better example might be something like:

# Runs a system command with basic error handling.
sub run_system {
  if ($verbose) {
    my ($cmd, @args) = @_;
    print "Running '$cmd'\n";
    if (@args) {
      print "  with arguments '@args'\n";
    }
  }
  if (system(@_)) {
    my $cmd = shift;
    my $arg_msg = "";
    if (@_) {
      $arg_msg = " with args ['@_']";
    }
    confess("Running '$cmd'$arg_msg failed on return code ($?)\n");
  }
}
[download]

But how many truly useful ones are there? The fact is that the built-ins in Perl combined with its flexibility make a lot of the basic utility functions you might write in a different language (VB, C, etc) pretty much useless. I cannot think of enough for me to want a new section. Instead I think that they belong in Snippets. True, that needs improvement (eg making it searchable). Perhaps it should have categories, etc. But I think that it is the right place for this.

On a slightly off note,
I think your rtrim example could be improved using sexegers.

elusion :