From bug-request at octave dot org Mon Nov 29 12:11:44 2004
Subject: deblank.m: remove blanks or spaces ?
From: "Pascal A. Dupuis" <Pascal dot Dupuis at esat dot kuleuven dot ac dot be>
To: bug at octave dot org
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 03:47:46 -0600

According to the doc, deblank remove the trailing 'blanks' from a
string, where no obvious definitions is given for 'blanks'. The code
implementation is to cut the string at the first ' ' (ASCII 32) or
'\0' character.

Wouldn't it be better to remove trailing whitespaces ? That would say
tabs, form feeds, line feed, would also be removed. If you're
searching for a number of a word, those entities don't make sense.

I propose the following patch :

------------------------------------
--- deblank.m.orig      2004-11-26 18:53:38.000000000 +0100
+++ deblank.m   2004-11-26 18:54:40.000000000 +0100
 at @ -35,7 +35,7 @@
 
   if (isstr (s))
 
-    k = find (s != " " & s != "\0");
+    k = find (!isspace(s) & s != "\0");
     if (isempty (s) || isempty (k))
       t = "";
     else
-------------------------------------

The main difference is that all whitespaces characters are taken as
candidate for removals, which seems more (to me) logical.

Pascal Dupuis

-- 
Dr. ir. Pascal Dupuis
K. U. Leuven, ESAT/ELECTA (formerly ELEN):  http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/
Kasteelpark Arenberg, 10; B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium
Tel. +32-16-32 10 21 -- Fax +32-16-32 19 85



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