custom Ruby String class method: trim() From http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3453262/how-to-strip-leading-and-trailing-quote-from-string-in-ruby

trim.rb

class String
  def trim sep=/\s/
    sep_source = sep.is_a?(Regexp) ? sep.source : Regexp.escape(sep)
    pattern = Regexp.new("\\A(#{sep_source})*(.*?)(#{sep_source})*\\z")
    self[pattern, 2]
  end
end