If you do not want to use the existing (and strongly recommended) utilities noted in other posts, I would use the expression

   s{ \A \s+ | \s+ \z }{}xmsg for @array;

Note that $_ is implicitly bound to the regex and so there is no need to use the expression $_ =~ s///.
Furthermore, the use of \s* in the expression you originally posted means that a substitution will be done in every string, since every string has zero or more whitespace at its beginning and end.

To trim the values of a hash, use an expression like

   s{ \A \s+ | \s+ \z }{}xmsg for values %hash;

It is not clear to me what you mean by trimming the 'keys' of a hash: altering a hash key (which is a string) creates a different key.

In reply to Re: Trimming whitespaces methods by Anonymous Monk
in thread Trimming whitespaces methods by harishnuti

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.