update_option destroys value / faulty trim

[hakre]

When using wordpress option function "update_option" and the value of the option is a string containing trailing spaces (wether in front or at the end), these spaces will be removed. This can destroy the option value since spaces are chars like any other chars in a string. The option value then is saved crippeled into the option system and each time the value is requested again trailing spaces are missing.

The defect is inside the update_option() function on line 281 in functions.php. In line 289 the option value type is checked to be a string and if it is a string, the string value will be trimmed:

if ( is_string($newvalue) )
		$newvalue = trim($newvalue);

It is totally unclear why this happens, the sourcecode isn't documented in any way. I applied a diff against the current SVN that removes these two lines of faulty code.

This is likely legacy code. I have no problem axing it.

(In [6367]) Remove triming from string options fixes #4781 props hakre

There is a regression on this bug. The usage of maybe_serialize() which was not in there the time this was fixed, leads to a trim _again_.

See #7132

(In [8100]) Don't trim strings in maybe_serialize(). Props hakre. fixes #7132 #7133 #4781 for trunk

(In [8101]) Don't trim strings in maybe_serialize(). Props hakre. fixes #7132 #7133 #4781 for 2.5

Milestone 2.5.2 deleted