#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my @lines = <DATA>;     # Don't do this unless necessary. :)
chomp( @lines );        # Removes IRSs from all lines.

# Loops through array, pulls out a line, trims white space from front
# and back and prints the line.
foreach my $line ( @lines ) {
	$line = trimSpaces( $line );
	print $line, "\n";
}

# The regular expression in the subroutine looks for zero
# or more space characters at the beginning and end of the
# line and removes them.
sub trimSpaces() {

    my $value = shift( @_ );
    $value =~ s/(^\s*|\s*$)//g;
    return $value;
}

__DATA__
hi there
 this and that 
   and the other thing
blah blah blah  
one two there
    four five six