Quicksilver Action to strip leading and trailing whitespace

strip_whitespace.applescript

property test_block_text : "   
  this and
that and
   asdf
       "

on process_text(block_text)
	-- AppleScript and Quicksilver are using code "e2 80 a8" as linebreak for some reason
	-- inspect by piping to `hexdump -C` and viewing with `echo -e`
	set perl to "/usr/bin/perl -0777 -pe 's#(^[[:space:]\\xe2\\x80\\xa8]*)|([[:space:]\\xe2\\x80\\xa8])*$##g' <<<"
	set result to do shell script perl & quoted form of block_text
	
	return result
end process_text

using terms from application "Quicksilver"
	
	on get direct types
		return {"NSStringPboardType"}
	end get direct types
	
	on process text block_text
		try
			set result to process_text(block_text)
			
			tell application "Quicksilver" to set selection to result
			
		on error a number b
			activate
			display dialog a with title "error with your QS action script"
		end try
	end process text
	
end using terms from

on run
	set result to process_text(test_block_text)
	tell application "Quicksilver" to set selection to result
end run