ctrim

ctrim is a command-line utility designed for trimming whitespace from the beginning and end of strings. It is typically used in scripting and shell environments to clean up user input, file content, or output from other commands. The utility operates by removing specified characters from the leading and trailing edges of a given string. By default, ctrim targets common whitespace characters such as spaces, tabs, newlines, and carriage returns.

Users can often customize the set of characters to be trimmed. This allows for more specific cleaning tasks, such as removing only leading spaces or trailing punctuation. The input string can be provided directly as an argument to the command or piped into ctrim from another process. The output, with the trimmed string, is usually printed to standard output, making it easy to integrate into command pipelines.

ctrim is a simple yet effective tool for data manipulation. Its straightforward functionality makes it a valuable addition to any command-line user's toolkit, especially when dealing with inconsistent or dirty data that requires pre-processing before further analysis or use. The efficiency of ctrim is also a key advantage, as it performs its task quickly, even with large amounts of data.