Error While creating a rule for trimming spaces

Hi All,

Please can you tell me the correct syntax for trimming the Spaces from the beginning of the word.

I tried like this but it is giving error as below:

BEGIN RETURN

ltrim($SPACES_TRIM, '');

END

ERROR:  The return statement is expected to return a conditional value: found type<VARCHAR>. (COR-10622)

Please do help me its urgent.

Thanks & Regards,

DJ