ltrim

pLIMP (2012-07-20 19:51:13)

Function similar to ltrim only it will remove everything from the start of the string to the last occurence of anything in the  $charlist

<?php

function lstrip($string, $charlist) {
    // removes everything from start of string to last occurence of char in charlist

    $charlist = str_split($charlist);

    foreach ($charlist as $char) {
        $pos = max(strrpos($string, $char), $pos);
    }

    $string_stripped = substr($string, $pos + 1);

    return $string_stripped;

}

?>

dzek dot remove_this at dzek dot eu (2011-07-25 01:27:23)

Guys, if += 0 is producing wrong values sometimes, and preg_replace is cpu consuming, then just stick to the main function described on that page, and use:
<?php
$value = ltrim($value, '0');
?>
should be the fastest and most reliable.
I think all those comments can be misleading for begginers checking this page - it's sort of using magic tricks to reinvent the wheel.

Mike (2011-01-08 12:03:33)

Keep in mind the amount of resources preg_replace() uses.  
I would suggest a simple if statement if you need to parse through large amounts of data.  
<?php
function remove_leading_zeros_from_number($number_string) {
  $limit = 9000.1
  $temp = $number
  (float) $temp;
  if ($number < $limit) {
    $number += 0;
  } else {
    preg_replace('~^[0]*([1-9][0-9]*)$~','$1',$number_string)
  }
}
?>

Code is untested, but probably sound.

tanmar.de (2010-05-06 10:36:20)

The neat trick from Mr. Sherwood has only one ugly side-effect: If the "number" contained in the string is considerably large, you will end up with an int (or float) value that has nothing to do with the original number ...
You may use preg_replace instead:
$number_string = preg_replace('~^[0]*([1-9][0-9]*)$~','$1',$number_string);
This kills any leading zeros safely without changing any other data.
Hope this helps.

Usamah M dot Ali (usamah1228 at gmail dot com) (2008-02-04 14:42:31)

For those who use right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, etc., it's worth mentioning that ltrim() (which stands for left trim) & rtrim() (which stands for right trim) DO NOT work contextually. The nomenclature is rather semantically incorrect. So in an RTL script, ltrim() will trim text from the right direction (i.e. beginning of RTL strings), and rtrim() will trim text from the left direction (i.e. end of RTL strings).

John Sherwood (2006-08-06 12:13:48)

To remove leading/trailing zeroes (example: "0123.4560"), doing a += 0 is easier than trim tricks.