How can I remove leading and trailing non-alphanumeric characters

Question

I\'m looking to \"trim\" non-alphanumerics from a string, similar to how trim() works with whitespace.

Help me convert #str|ng# to st

Answer 1

You don't need regex, use trim() and specify what to trim (it trims whitespace by default):

$string = trim($string, "#");

Docs: http://php.net/trim