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deblank

Remove trailing whitespace from ends of strings

Description

example

newStr = deblank(str) removes trailing whitespace and null characters from str and returns the result as newStr. However, deblank does not remove significant whitespace characters. For example, deblank removes trailing space and tab characters, but does not remove the nonbreaking space character, char(160).

Examples

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Create a character vector that contains space, tab, and null characters.

chr = sprintf(' \t MathWorks \t');
chr = [chr char(0)];

Display chr between | characters.

['|' chr '|']
ans = 
'| 	 MathWorks 	 |'

Remove the trailing blanks and display newChr between | characters.

newChr = deblank(chr);
['|' newChr '|']
ans = 
'| 	 MathWorks|'

Create a character array that contains multiple pieces of text. When a character array contains multiple rows, it is often necessary to pad the array with space characters.

chr = ['Mercury';
       'Apollo ';
       'ISS    ']
chr = 3x7 char array
    'Mercury'
    'Apollo '
    'ISS    '

Convert chr to a string array. The elements of str include the trailing space characters that padded chr.

str = string(chr)
str = 3x1 string
    "Mercury"
    "Apollo "
    "ISS    "

To remove the trailing spaces, use the deblank function.

newStr = deblank(str)
newStr = 3x1 string
    "Mercury"
    "Apollo"
    "ISS"

Remove trailing blanks from all the character vectors in a cell array and display them.

A = {'MATLAB    ','SIMULINK    ';
     'Toolboxes    ','MathWorks    '}
A = 2x2 cell
    {'MATLAB    '   }    {'SIMULINK    ' }
    {'Toolboxes    '}    {'MathWorks    '}

B = deblank(A)
B = 2x2 cell
    {'MATLAB'   }    {'SIMULINK' }
    {'Toolboxes'}    {'MathWorks'}

Create a character vector that includes the nonbreaking space character, char(160), as a trailing blank character.

chr = '     MathWorks';
chr = [chr char(160) '     '];

Display chr between | symbols to show the leading and trailing whitespace.

['|' chr '|']
ans = 
'|     MathWorks      |'

Remove the trailing whitespace characters.

newChr = deblank(chr);

Display newChr between | symbols. deblank removes the trailing space characters, but leaves the nonbreaking space at the end of newChr.

['|' newChr '|']
ans = 
'|     MathWorks |'

Input Arguments

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Input text, specified as a string array, a character array, or as a cell array of character arrays.

Algorithms

deblank does not remove significant whitespace characters.

This table shows the most common characters that are significant whitespace characters and their descriptions. For more information, see Whitespace character.

Significant Whitespace Character

Description

char(133)

Next line

char(160)

Nonbreaking space

char(8199)

Figure space

char(8239)

Narrow no-break space

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced before R2006a