What about undef? It can be even faster:

use 5.16.2;
#use warnings;

use Test::More;
use Benchmark qw( cmpthese );

# Returns non-empty strings with leading and trailing spaces removed.
sub mca # McA
{
    grep { $_ ne "" } map { s/^\s+//; s/\s+$//; $_ } @_;
    }

sub tux # Tux
{
    map { defined $_ ? m/(\S(?:.*\S)?)/ : () } @_;
    }

sub choroba # choroba
{
    grep !m/^$/ => map s/^\s+|\s+$//gr => @_
    }

sub eplam # eyepopslikeamosquito
{
    grep { !m/^\s*$/ && s/^\s*|\s*$//g } @_;
    }

my @x = (" hello ", "\thello again\t", "", " ",
     undef, " \t", "jock", "\t abc", "def \t ");
my @e = ("hello", "hello again", "jock", "abc", "def");

is_deeply ([ mca     (@x) ], \@e, "mca");
is_deeply ([ tux     (@x) ], \@e, "tux");
is_deeply ([ choroba (@x) ], \@e, "choroba");
is_deeply ([ eplam   (@x) ], \@e, "eplam");

cmpthese (1000000, {
    "mca"     => sub { my @y = mca     (@x); },
    "tux"     => sub { my @y = tux     (@x); },
    "choroba" => sub { my @y = choroba (@x); },
    "eplam"   => sub { my @y = eplam   (@x); },
    });

done_testing;
__END__
ok 1 - mca
ok 2 - tux
ok 3 - choroba
ok 4 - eplam
            Rate   eplam choroba     mca     tux
eplam   100908/s      --    -40%    -57%    -66%
choroba 169205/s     68%      --    -29%    -43%
mca     236967/s    135%     40%      --    -20%
tux     297619/s    195%     76%     26%      --
1..4

[download]

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

In reply to Re^3: Code review: function to trim whitespace from all items in a list by Tux
in thread Code review: function to trim whitespace from all items in a list by eyepopslikeamosquito

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