Cutting down a Char

Question

I am new to Oracle so this is probably really easy (but maybe not).
I am working in Oracle Forms, and I have a list that is full of character strings that are up to 25 characters long. I take this value and try to use it somewhere else, but it seems to be padded on the right with white spaces that also get copied. Here is an example:
string_to_copy -> (actual value '12345')
new_string := string_to_copy || 'Hello'
What I see with the new string:
12345 Hello
I need a way to copy the original string into a temporary variable and cut down all the spaces on the right of it. I am a C++/C# programmer so this is kind of tough for me to figure out in PL/SQL.
I can not change the original value at all, and the original value can contain spaces between words, ie 12345 6789 10
So I think what I need to do is loop through the string with a 2 character look-ahead and find the first occurance of 2 whitespaces in a row. Once I find this I will take the Loop Control Variable and use that in declaring a new string of that length ????????
That is one idea and problably the wrong one, since you can not declare variables after "begin" in PL/SQL. Please give me some insight in how to best approach this. Thank You.

Answer 1

You can use trim() function to eliminate spaces on the left and right sides.
SQL> SELECT 'A' || '    TEST      ' || 'B' FROM dual;
'A'||'TEST'||'B'
A    TEST      B
SQL> SELECT 'A' || trim('    TEST      ')  || 'B' FROM dual;
'A'||T
ATESTB
SQL> If you need to remove spaces from right side only use RTRIM() function. Syntax is the same as above. Neither TRIM() nor RTRIM() will remove spaces from the middle of the string
TRIM('A     A') will be equal to 'A     A'