Deleting leading spaces in some labels

[Margherita Lazzeri]

Hello everyone,
in my dataset, I have some variables that have a leading space in the labels of variables.
If I use this code:
foreach v of varlist * {
local lbl: var label `v'
local lbl: subinstr local lbl " " "", all
label var `v' `"`lbl'"'
}
all the spaces are removed but I want to keep them and delete the leading space (if present). How can I do it?

[Nick Cox]

Use ltrim() on the label or

foreach v of varlist * {
local lbl: var label `v'
    if substr(`"`lbl'"', 1, 1) == " " {
        local lbl = substr(`"lbl'", 2, .)
        label var `v' `"`lbl'"'
    }
}

[Margherita Lazzeri]

Thank you so much Nick Cox! The code works perfectly.
Have a good day