# LTRIM

Removes leading space characters from the given string.

## Syntax

```sql
LTRIM (str)

```

## Arguments

* str: any string or binary object

## Return Type

String

## Examples

> **📝 Note**: This function removes only space " " characters. Other whitespace characters like tab `\t`, newline `\n`, etc are preserved. It is equivalent to `TRIM(LEADING " " FROM str)`.

```sql
SELECT RTRIM('    ohai     ') AS r, LTRIM('    ohai     ') AS l;

```

```output

+----------+-----------+
| r        | l         |
+----------+-----------+
|     ohai | ohai      |
+----------+-----------+

```

> **⚠️ Warning**: ## Implicit CollationWhen `character_set_server` is set to `utf8`, string literals with characters using 4-byte encoding are implicitly assigned binary collation and processed as a sequence of bytes rather than characters. This implicit conversion to binary collation causes string functions to return unexpected results. To avoid using implicit binary collation, either use explicit type casting or use database columns defined with the `utf8mb4` character set. For more information, refer to [Implicit Collation in Special Cases](https://docs.singlestore.com/db/v9.1/reference/sql-reference/character-encoding/special-cases.md).

## Related Topics

* [RTRIM](https://docs.singlestore.com/db/v9.1/reference/sql-reference/string-functions/rtrim.md)
* [TRIM](https://docs.singlestore.com/db/v9.1/reference/sql-reference/string-functions/trim.md)

***

Modified at: April 4, 2023

Source: [/db/v9.1/reference/sql-reference/string-functions/ltrim/](https://docs.singlestore.com/db/v9.1/reference/sql-reference/string-functions/ltrim/)

(An index of the documentation is available at /llms.txt)