Left Trim in Javascript

javascript, regex, trim

Solution

Use:

String.prototype.leftTrim = function() {
    return this.replace(/^\s+/,"");
}

In the regex the:

- ^ means "from the beginning of the string"

- \s means whitespace character class

- + means one-or more (greedy)

so....

- ^\s+ means "one or more consecutive whitespace characters from the beginning of the class"

Note: The `g` flag at the end of your regex is unnecessary as the anchors (^ and $) explicitly define what will match. There cannot be multiple matches.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference/Global_Objects/RegExp for details on regex syntax in javascript

Problem

There are a lot of scripts out there to trim a string in JavaScript, but none that allow you to just left trim a string. This is what I use to trim: ``` String.prototype.trim = function() { return this.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g,""); } ``` I would like to change this a little and create a new function called leftTrim that only removes the leading space.

Original source

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