RTRIM (Transact-SQL)

Returns a character string after truncating all trailing blanks.

Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

RTRIM ( character_expression )

Arguments

• character_expression
  Is an expression of character data. character_expression can be a constant, variable, or column of either character or binary data.

  character_expression must be of a data type that is implicitly convertible to varchar. Otherwise, use CAST to explicitly convert character_expression.

Return Types

varchar or nvarchar

Examples

A. Simple Example

The following example takes a string of characters that has spaces at the end of the sentence, and returns the text without the spaces at the end of the sentence.

SELECT RTRIM('Removes trailing spaces.   ');

Here is the result set.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Removes trailing spaces.

B. Using RTRIM with a variable

The following example demonstrates how to use RTRIM to remove trailing spaces from a character variable.

DECLARE @string_to_trim varchar(60);
SET @string_to_trim = 'Four spaces are after the period in this sentence.    ';
SELECT @string_to_trim + ' Next string.';
SELECT RTRIM(@string_to_trim) + ' Next string.';
GO

Here is the result set.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four spaces are after the period in this sentence.     Next string.

(1 row(s) affected)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four spaces are after the period in this sentence. Next string.

(1 row(s) affected)

See Also

Reference

CAST and CONVERT (Transact-SQL)

Data Types (Transact-SQL)

String Functions (Transact-SQL)