#### WITSPC

#### Synopsis

    HELP:   Default whitespace handling for a string [PRESERVE]
    TYPE:   NUMBER
    SYNTAX: WITSPC=PRESERVE/REPLACE/COLLAPSE/REMOVE/TRAILING/LEADING/BOTH/NUMBER

#### Description

With the whitespace modifier, you can specify how to handle whitespace in string data. Leading whitespace, trailing whitespace or both can be removed. Multiple consecutive whitespace characters can be collapsed to only one. Whitespace can also be removed completely. A special behavior is implemented for numbers which works like 'BOTH', but leading zeros (0) are also suppressed and if the number does not start (.3 -> 0.3) or end (3. ->3.0) with a digit, a 0 is put in front or afterwards.

Replacement and removal of whitespace are pre-calculated once at the beginning of execution to optimize the required CPU time for the conversion. Whitespace handling is done based on Unicode code points and is independent of the character set used.

#### Selections

- `PRESERVE - Don't touch any whitespace`
- `REPLACE - Replace all control characters with whitespace characters`
- `COLLAPSE - Remove leading/trailing whitespace and control characters and collapse multiple whitespaces into`
- `REMOVE - Remove all whitespace and control characters from the string`
- `TRAILING - Remove trailing whitespace and control characters from the string`
- `LEADING - Remove leading whitespace and control characters from the string`
- `BOTH - Remove leading and trailing whitespace and control characters`
- `NUMBER - Remove leading/trailing whitespace and control characters as well as leading zeros`