What php code do you exactly use that is sent back to the browser? A small reproduce code would be needed to see if the bug is on php or browser level.

Hello I have tried the following code below, but still seem to get the 
extra white space. The values have been passed via AJAX POST and GET 
but  to no avail.  All the commented code has also been used.  

<?php
//$paint = $_GET['paints'];
$paint = $_POST['paints'];

//PREVIEW COLOR
#echo trim($paint);
#echo '#AB1616';

$newStr = ereg_replace('[[:space:]]+', '', trim($paint)); 
echo $newStr;
#echo $paint;
echo trim($paint);
?>

This is most likely just user error, please try this script:

<?php
echo <<< OUT
<form method="post">
<input type="text" name="f" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
OUT;
$f = trim($_POST['f']);
var_dump($f);
?>

Tune the form part so it actually works :)

I have tried the following code and still get an error in IE

<?php
$paint = trim($_POST['paints']);
echo($paint);
?>

The IE development team says it is not IE bug....

Would you mind showing the output of the script I provided? I can NOT 
reproduce this..

http://89.233.173.91/bug/test.php 

Just changed the "f" to "e"

As I suspected: It works fine with all browsers I have right now: 
IE7, Chrome, Firefox..

Is the initial test http://89.233.173.91/bug/  working for you now?