Trim function in C, to trim in place (without returning the string)

Question

char testStr[] = "          trim this           ";
char** pTestStr = &testStr;
trim(pTestStr);

int trim(char** pStr)
{
 char* str = *pStr;
 while(isspace(*str)) {
  (*pStr)++;
  str++;
 }

 if(*str == 0) {
  return 0;
 }

 char *end = str + strlen(str) - 1;
 while(end > str && isspace(*end))
  end--;
 *(end+1) = 0;

 return 0;
}

Answer 1

You need to make testStr writeable:

char testStr[] = "          trim this           ";

The problem is that char *ptr = ... has ptr pointing to the actual literal string which is in read-only memory.

By using char testStr[] = ... you are allocating an array and having the array initialized with the same contents as the literal string. Since this is an array, it is writable.

Answer 2

char testStr[] = "          trim this           ";
char* pTestStr = &testStr[0];
trim(&pTestStr);

void trim(char* str)
{
    if(!str)
        return;

    char* ptr = str;
    int len = strlen(ptr);

    while(len-1 > 0 && isspace(ptr[len-1]))
        ptr[--len] = 0;

    while(*ptr && isspace(*ptr))
        ++ptr, --len;

    memmove(str, ptr, len + 1);
}

Answer 3

Edit : updated the code based on the latest version of zString library.

Below is my implementation for trim, left-trim and , right-trimfunctions (will be added to zString string library).

Although the functions return *char, since the original string is modified, these would serve your purpose.

One could use standard library functions, such as isspace(), but implementations below are bare bone code, that relies on no library function.

/* trim */
char *zstring_trim(char *str){
    char *src=str;  /* save the original pointer */
    char *dst=str;  /* result */
    char c;
    int is_space=0;
    int in_word=0;  /* word boundary logical check */
    int index=0;    /* index of the last non-space char*/

    /* validate input */
    if (!str)
        return str;

    while ((c=*src)){
        is_space=0;

        if (c=='\t' || c=='\v' || c=='\f' || c=='\n' || c=='\r' || c==' ')
            is_space=1;

        if(is_space == 0){
         /* Found a word */
            in_word = 1;
            *dst++ = *src++;  /* make the assignment first
                               * then increment
                               */
        } else if (is_space==1 && in_word==0) {
         /* Already going through a series of white-spaces */
            in_word=0;
            ++src;
        } else if (is_space==1 && in_word==1) {
         /* End of a word, dont mind copy white spaces here */
            in_word=0;
            *dst++ = *src++;
            index = (dst-str)-1; /* location of the last char */
        }
    }

    /* terminate the string */
    *(str+index)='\0';

    return str;
}

/* right trim */
char *zstring_rtrim(char *str){
    char *src=str;  /* save the original pointer */
    char *dst=str;  /* result */
    char c;
    int is_space=0;
    int index=0;    /* index of the last non-space char */

    /* validate input */
    if (!str)
        return str;

    /* copy the string */
    while(*src){
        *dst++ = *src++;
        c = *src;

        if (c=='\t' || c=='\v' || c=='\f' || c=='\n' || c=='\r' || c==' ')
            is_space=1;
        else
            is_space=0;

        if (is_space==0 && *src)
            index = (src-str)+1;
    }

    /* terminate the string */
    *(str+index)='\0';

    return str;
}

/* left trim */
char *zstring_ltrim(char *str){
    char *src=str;  /* save the original pointer */
    char *dst=str;  /* result */
    char c;
    int index=0;    /* index of the first non-space char */

    /* validate input */
    if (!str)
        return str;

    /* skip leading white-spaces */
    while((c=*src)){ 
        if (c=='\t' || c=='\v' || c=='\f' || c=='\n' || c=='\r' || c==' '){
            ++src;
            ++index;
        } else
            break;
    }

    /* copy rest of the string */
    while(*src)
        *dst++ = *src++;

    /* terminate the string */
    *(src-index)='\0';

    return str;
}