diff --git a/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/search/PDOMSearchPatternQuery.java b/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/search/PDOMSearchPatternQuery.java
index b0eaa1c8110..4da1c76281c 100644
--- a/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/search/PDOMSearchPatternQuery.java
+++ b/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/search/PDOMSearchPatternQuery.java
@@ -81,7 +81,8 @@ public class PDOMSearchPatternQuery extends PDOMSearchQuery {
 		super(scope, flags);
 		this.scopeDesc = scopeDesc;
 		
-		this.patternStr = patternStr;
+		// remove spurious whitespace, which will make the search fail 100% of the time
+		this.patternStr = patternStr.trim();
 		
 		// Parse the pattern string
 		List patternList = new ArrayList();