Removeing blank spaces

[KeredDrahcir]

I have some values in an array and I need to remove the blank spaces before them.
I've used

array_walk($context_array, 'trim_value');

To trim the spaces using the function:

  function trim_value(&$value)
  {
    $value = trim($value, "\xC2\xA0");
  }

This seems to have no effect. I need to convert my values into an array of single characters. I don't have PHP 5 so I've used a function to do the same job as str_split.

  //This fuction is almost the same as the fuction str_split included in php5.
  function strsplt($thetext,$num)
  {
    if (!$num)
    {
      $num=1;
    }
    $arr=array();
    $xfive=floor(strlen($thetext)/$num);
    while ($ifive<=$xfive)
    {
      $yfive=substr($thetext,$jfive,$num);
      if ($yfive)
      {
        array_push($arr,$yfive);
      }
      $ifive++;
      $jfive=$jfive+$num;
    }
    return $arr;
  }

However when I get the result for the blank space are not removed and for sections where I've used   it has changed it to which means I get wired looking symbols. Can anyone suggest what it happening?

[KeredDrahcir]

I'd like to know why this happened. I've fixed it chanigng the trim function to this:
function trim_value(&$va lue)
{
$value = trim($value, " , ");
}

I'd like to fix it proerly though.