This function strips the null element values from the beginning and ending of an array. For instance, this snippet is useful when you use file(), which reads an entire file into an array and in the beginning / ending of the file there are blank lines that need to be stripped.

function trim_array($array, $keep_keys = false)
{
$i = 0;

   foreach($array as $key => $value)
   {
   $value = trim($value);

   if($value) break;

if($keep_keys) unset($array[$key]);

   $i++;
   }

if($i > 0 && !$keep_keys)
{
	array_splice($array, 0, $i);
}

$reverse = array_reverse($array, true);

$i = 0;

   foreach($reverse as $key => $value)
   {
   $value = trim($value);

   if($value) break;

   if($keep_keys) unset($array[$key]);

   $i++;
   }

if($i > 0 && !$keep_keys)
{
	array_splice($array, -$i);
}

return $array;
}

$array = array(' ', ' ' , ' ', "n", "r", 1, 2 , 5 , 7, ' ', ' ', ' ', 10, 11, 12, 13, ' ', "r", "n", " ", " ");

echo "<pre>"; print_r($array); echo "</pre>";

/*
First Argument: The Array
Second Argument: New keys? false = the current keys will be kept, true= new keys will be assigned to the array (default is set to 'false')
*/

echo "<pre>"; print_r(trim_array($array, true)); echo "</pre>";

NOTE: In the second argument of trim_array() you can specify if you wish to keep the initial array keys (true = will keep the keys, false = will assign new ones). The default value is ‘false’, meaning that new keys will be assigned to the array.

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