use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $line1 = "  first ";
my $line2 = "  second ";

print "\nlines to be trimmed...\n";
print Dumper $line1;
print Dumper $line2;

$line1 = trim ($line1);
$line2 = trim ($line2);
print "\nafter trimming start and end both...\n";
print Dumper $line1;
print Dumper $line2;

# in case u have an array.. you can use the map function
# say  
my @array;

# and stuff with spaces at the beginning or end or both
$line1 = "  first ";
$line2 = "  second ";

print "\nlines to be trimmed...\n";
print Dumper $line1;
print Dumper $line2;

push (@array,$line1);
push (@array,$line2);

print "\narray to be trimmed...\n";
print Dumper @array;
my @array2 = map { trim ($_) } @array;
print "\ntrimmed array\n";
print Dumper @array2;


# using trimstart and trimend
$line1 = "  first ";
$line2 = "  second ";
print "\nlines to be trimmed...\n";
print Dumper $line1;
print Dumper $line2;


$line1 = trimstart ($line1);
$line2 = trimend ($line2);

print "\ntrimming the start using trimstart...\n";
print Dumper $line1;
print "\ntrimming the end using trimend...\n";
print Dumper $line2;


sub trim {

 # remove both leading and trailing whitespace
 my $line =  shift;
 $line=~s/^\s+|\s+$//g;
 return $line;

}

sub trimstart {

 # remove leading whitespace
 my $line =  shift;
 $line=~s/^\s+//g;
 return $line;

}

sub trimend {

 # remove trailing whitespace
 my $line =  shift;
 $line=~s/\s+$//g;
 return $line;

}