Generic string-strip still missing

["Andreas Röhler" <andreas.roehler@online.de>]

Hi everybody,

whilst Emacs comes with a comment-string-strip --see def below-- a 
generic form is seems still missing.

 From newcomment.el:

(defun comment-string-strip (str beforep afterp)
   "Strip STR of any leading (if BEFOREP) and/or trailing (if AFTERP) 
space."
   (string-match (concat "\\`" (if beforep "\\s-*")
             "\\(.*?\\)" (if afterp "\\s-*\n?")
             "\\'") str)
   (match-string 1 str))

Making the matcher customizable resp. to hand over as arg, seems all 
what's needed.

Thanks,

Andreas