Using the LTRIM and RTRIM functions to eat up more than 1 blank space

ScottLouque

I have 3 fields which I am concatenating together into a LABEL field

Pre_DIR, STR_NAME and SUFFIX

      X          xyz                xyz

I am trying to use the LTRIM and RTRIM functions to eat up the blank spaces so the column lines up properly

My expression in the field calculator looks like this

RTRIM( [PRE_DIR]) & " " & LTRIM([STR_NAME]) & " " & [SUF_FIX]

but my column still looks like this

X  xyz xyz

xyz xyz

X  xyz xyz

What is wrong with my function? Could someone point out to me Why is it not lining up along the left side of the column?

Thanks,

DanPatterson_Retired

I think the string functions are built into the field calculator, so you can ignore the import string line and probably the prefix to the strip functions.  But in any event, time to move on to python, so make sure you set the parser to python.

>>> import string
>>> a
'  '
>>> b
' street name '
>>> c
' suffix '
>>> abc = "{} {} {}".format(a,b,c)
>>> abc
'    street name  suffix '
>>> string.strip(abc)
'street name  suffix'

so in the field calculator your expression would be

string.strip(a + b + c)
'street name  suffix'

but using field names which in python are enclosed in ! marks

string.strip( !a! + !b! + !c! )
'street name  suffix'