Matt Glaman: Trimming whitespace from Drupal form submissions using an HTTP middleware

Leading and trailing whitespaces. The bane of normalized data everywhere. It seems like a constant task that needs to be performed on incoming user data. When working with Laravel, I use the TrimStrings middleware. Calls PHP’s built-in trim function on all string values for the request query and input values – including JSON! While working on my project WhiskeyDex, I noticed how mobile device keyboards always add trailing whitespace when using the autocomplete functionality. This, in turn, meant user-created data will end up with trailing whitespaces. I started to just quick-fix in the single instance and realized it should be solved once and for all.