TRIM()

Signature

TRIM ( [ characters FROM ] string )

Parameters

• characters — A literal, variable, or function call of any non-LOB character type (nvarchar, varchar, nchar, or char) containing characters that should be removed. nvarchar(max) and varchar(max) types aren't allowed.
• string — An expression of any character type (nvarchar, varchar, nchar, or char) where characters should be removed.

Examples

SELECT '[' + TRIM('   keyboard   ') + ']' AS trimmed;

trimmed
----------------
[keyboard]

SELECT TRIM( '     test    ') AS Result;

test

SELECT TRIM( '.,! ' FROM '     #     test    .') AS Result;

#     test

Run against SQL Server 16.0.4265.3 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

Available on

• SQL Server 2017 and later
• Azure SQL Database
• Azure SQL Managed Instance
• Azure Synapse Analytics
• Microsoft Fabric warehouse
• Fabric SQL database