How to remove leading and trailing spaces from a string

You can use:

• String.TrimStart - Removes all leading occurrences of a set of characters specified in an array from the current String object.
• String.TrimEnd - Removes all trailing occurrences of a set of characters specified in an array from the current String object.
• String.Trim - combination of the two functions above

Usage:

string txt = "                   i am a string                                    ";
char[] charsToTrim = { ' ' };    
txt = txt.Trim(charsToTrim)); // txt = "i am a string"

EDIT:

txt = txt.Replace(" ", ""); // txt = "iamastring"   

String.Trim

Removes all leading and trailing white-space characters from the current String object.

Usage:

txt = txt.Trim();

If this isn't working then it highly likely that the "spaces" aren't spaces but some other non printing or white space character, possibly tabs. In this case you need to use the String.Trim method which takes an array of characters:

  char[] charsToTrim = { ' ', '\t' };
  string result = txt.Trim(charsToTrim);

Source

You can add to this list as and when you come across more space like characters that are in your input data. Storing this list of characters in your database or configuration file would also mean that you don't have to rebuild your application each time you come across a new character to check for.

NOTE

As of .NET 4 .Trim() removes any character that Char.IsWhiteSpace returns true for so it should work for most cases you come across. Given this, it's probably not a good idea to replace this call with the one that takes a list of characters you have to maintain.

It would be better to call the default .Trim() and then call the method with your list of characters.