The ltrim() function is a built-in function in PHP which is used to remove whitespace from the beginning of a string.

Syntax:

ltrim(string,charlist)

string – This parameter is required. It specifies the string to be checked.

charlist – This parameter is optional. It specifies which characters are to be removed from the string. These functions will remove the following whitespace characters:

• Space character (” “)
• Tab character (“t”)
• Vertical tab character (“v”)
• Newline character (“n”)
• Carriage return character (“r”)
• Null-byte character (“x0B”)

Example:

<?php
$str = '      PHP Tutorials!';
echo strlen($str);        // Output: 20
echo '<br>';
$trim_str = ltrim($str);
echo strlen($trim_str); // Output: 14
?>