I am parsing a file and there is a multi-line section that may have 0 or more new line characters at its beginning and / or the end. I want to trim these new lines but leave any new lines intact that are in the body of the text.

For example, the relevant section of the source file might look like this:

... Some Field:some value Example Field: This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. +This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. +This is a sentence in a paragraph. another Field:some value

When I parse "Example Field" the resulting string should be:

$example_string = "This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a senten +ce in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. +This is a sentence in a paragraph."

and not:

$example_string = " This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. +This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. This is a sentence in a paragraph. +This is a sentence in a paragraph. "

This is how I am trimming the beginning white space (and it works):

$body =~ s/^\n+//m;

However I tried this regular expression to trim the ending white space, and it does not work:

$body =~ s/\n+$//m;

I know my syntax is off, but not sure where.

I'd appreciate any help to get it right.

Thanks in advance.


In reply to Trim blanks from the beginning and end of a multi-line string by kenclark

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