|14:29 choroba@triangle |~ $ time perl -e 'for (1..1000000) { $line=" aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff ";}' real 0m0.041s user 0m0.042s sys 0m0.000s |14:29 choroba@triangle |~ $ time perl -e 'for (1..1000000) { $line=" aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff "; $line =~ s/^ +//; $line =~ s/ +$//;}' real 0m0.747s user 0m0.740s sys 0m0.004s