Ran into this problem today and it seemed to take quite a long time for me to find a solution so I'm posting how it works here for the benefit of others. This method uses a regular expression to do it's bidding.

<!--- set up a test variable --->
<cfset mySpaceFilledString = "a brand new combine harvester" />

<!--- remove ALL spaces from the string --->
<cfset mySpaceFreeVariable = ReReplace(mySpaceFilledString, "[[:space:]]","","ALL")>

<!--- check it works --->
<cfdump var = #mySpaceFreeVariable#>

this returns "abrandnewcombineharvester" - all spaces removed from the whole string



To simply remove the spaces at the beginning and end of a string (a form field for example) it's much easier...

<!--- set up a test variable --->
<cfset form.myTestString = " mark mcaulay " />

<!--- remove spaces from start and end of the string --->
<cfset mySpaceFreeVariable = Trim(form.myTestString)>

<!--- check it works --->

<cfdump var = #mySpaceFreeVariable#>

this returns "mark mcaulay" - only the spaces at the start and end of the string have been removed

Hope this helps someone!

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**UPDATE - Just for good measure, and of course, to keep James happy ;) here is the equivelent in php

<?php

// set up a test variable

$mySpaceFilledString = " a brand new combine harvester ";

// remove all spaces from the string

$mySpaceFreeVariable = str_replace(" ", "", $mySpaceFilledString);

// check it works

echo $mySpaceFreeVariable;

?>

this returns "abrandnewcombineharvester" - all spaces removed from the whole string

ﾠ

To simply remove the spaces at the beginning and end of a string (a form field for example) it's again, much easier...

<?php

// set up a test variable

$myFormVariable = " mark mcaulay ";

// remove spaces from start and end of the string

$myTrimmedVariable = trim($mySpaceFilledString);

//check it works

echo $myTrimmedVariable;

?>

this returns "mark mcaulay" - only the spaces at the start and end of the string have been removed

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