Empty member variable is not empty

[code green]

strlen reports a length of 6 even though it is empty.
Also if(empty) reports true.
What is happening
[PHP]echo '<br>'.$this->message;
trim($this->message);
echo '<br>'.$this->message;
if(empty($this->message))
return;

$this->message .= '<br>strlen '.strlen($this->message).
' '.$this->message;
echo '<br>'.$this->message;[/PHP]
The web page source code is

<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>strlen 6 <br>

[Atli]

Try var_dump. That should tell you exactly what the variable is.

[code green]

OK Atli I will take a look.
This has had me baffled for a few weeks now.
It is part of an error handling class that reports script problems via email.
Nothing critical, but it means I am getting annoying empty emails.

[code green]

It was a html <br> tag.
var_dump and var_export showed

string(4) "
"

Looking at the source code behind the web page revealed

string(4) "<br>"

Have handled the problem.
Thanks for the tip Atli