Generic string-strip still missing

[Andreas Röhler]

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