That was my first thought also. I was just curious if it was faster than s/^\s+|\s+$//g;

use Benchmark;
my $val = "      Smart Way    ";
timethese(1000000, {
  regex1 => sub {
    my $tmp = $val;
    $tmp =~ s/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/$1/g;
  },
  regex2 => sub {
    my $tmp = $val;
    $tmp =~ s/^\s+//;
    $tmp =~ s/\s+$//;
  }
});
__OUTPUT__
Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of regex1, regex2...
    regex1:  8 wallclock secs ( 8.10 usr +  0.00 sys =  8.10 CPU) @ 12
+3426.31/s
(n=1000000)
    regex2:  2 wallclock secs ( 1.96 usr +  0.00 sys =  1.96 CPU) @ 50
+9164.97/s
(n=1000000)
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--

flounder