# ltrim

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

ltrim — Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string

### Description

ltrim ( string `$str` [, string `$character_mask` ] ) : string

Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string.

### Parameters

`str`

  The input string.

`character_mask`

  You can also specify the characters you want to strip, by means of the `character_mask` parameter. Simply list all characters that you want to be stripped. With `..` you can specify a range of characters.

### Return Values

This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the beginning of `str`. Without the second parameter, ltrim() will strip these characters:

- " " (ASCII `32` (`0x20`)), an ordinary space.
- "\t" (ASCII `9` (`0x09`)), a tab.
- "\n" (ASCII `10` (`0x0A`)), a new line (line feed).
- "\r" (ASCII `13` (`0x0D`)), a carriage return.
- "\0" (ASCII `0` (`0x00`)), the `NUL`-byte.
- "\x0B" (ASCII `11` (`0x0B`)), a vertical tab.

### Examples

Example #1 Usage example of ltrim()

`<?php
$text = "\t\tThese are a few words :) ... ";
$binary = "\x09Example string\x0A";
$hello = "Hello World";
var_dump($text, $binary, $hello);
print "\n";
$trimmed = ltrim($text);
var_dump($trimmed);
$trimmed = ltrim($text, " \t.");
var_dump($trimmed);
$trimmed = ltrim($hello, "Hdle");
var_dump($trimmed);
// trim the ASCII control characters at the beginning of $binary
// (from 0 to 31 inclusive)
$clean = ltrim($binary, "\x00..\x1F");
var_dump($clean);
?>`

The above example will output:

    string(32) "        These are a few words :) ...  "
    string(16) "    Example string
    "
    string(11) "Hello World"

    string(30) "These are a few words :) ...  "
    string(30) "These are a few words :) ...  "
    string(7) "o World"
    string(15) "Example string
    "

### See Also

- trim() - Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string
- rtrim() - Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the end of a string