[iancarroll]

because if they were hashed, spaces would be irrelevant (hashes don't have spaces)

[pconner]

You can apply a hashing algorithm to a string that contains spaces. The spaces are very much relevant.

In MD5 "String with spaces" yields eab431cd212fb8b5ae223acbcfe58cca

"Stringwithspaces" gives 3cd297b2d7e48709d92890f88abdde0a

[iancarroll]

I meant the hashes themselves wouldn't have spaces, therefore any odd database storage requirement wouldn't matter.

[tomschlick]

its probably because of dumb users. user makes password with spaces, then tries with without spaces and cant figure out why it wont work...

[taspeotis]

I don't know why this is getting downvoted. It's pretty easy to have accidently insert leading or trailing whitespace when copying/pasting a password.

(Users should never store passwords in plain text or email them to one-another but the reality is they do.)

[mattkrea]

client-side validation?