# Stripping whitespace while reading CSV

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/stripping-whitespace-while-reading-csv/193645>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 20, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/stripping-whitespace-while-reading-csv/193645 "2010-08-20T23:52:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fearless\_fool](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@fearless\_fool](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fearless_fool)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/stripping-whitespace-while-reading-csv/193645/1 "2010-08-20T23:52:43Z")

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I’m perplexed over what ought to be a simple CSV question: can you ask  
CSV to strip whitespace from individual cells as it reads? The  
following works, but is it the approved idiom?

CSV.parse(s).each {|row| row.each {|col| col.strip!}}

- ff

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fearless\_fool](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@fearless\_fool](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fearless_fool)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 8:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/stripping-whitespace-while-reading-csv/193645/2 "2010-08-23T08:06:24Z")

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Fearless F. wrote:

> I’m perplexed over what ought to be a simple CSV question: can you ask  
> CSV to strip whitespace from individual cells as it reads? The  
> following works, but is it the approved idiom?
> 
> CSV.parse(s).each {|row| row.each {|col| col.strip!}}
> 
> - ff

I can’t recall why I stopped using CSV, so I am not the best person to  
answer, but it looks okay.  
You can use CSV.foreach also.

To see options, on the command line you can do:

ri CSV::new