WSO2 Remove Blank Spaces from beginning of text file

I have written a WSO2 integration which calls an API, grabs the properties I want from that API call, puts together a payload, passes that payload to a smooks mediator, which right pads each value with an appropriate number of spaces, and then writes to a .txt file. Everything is working GREAT - except - the beginning of each row in my .txt file is pre-pended with several blank spaces. So the file looks like this:

     value value value value
     value value value value

rather than this:

value value value value
value value value value

the portion of my smooks generator that pads each element looks like this:

<ftl:freemarker applyOnElement="Employee180">
     <ftl:template>
          <!--${.vars["Employee180"].RecordType?right_pad(3)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace1?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].ContractNumber?right_pad(6)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace2?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].EmployeeIDNumber?right_pad(9)?replace("-","")}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace3?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].EmployeeName?right_pad(24)}${.vars["Employee180"].DateOfBirth?right_pad(10)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace4?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].DateOfEmployment?right_pad(10)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace5?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].Sex?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace6?right_pad(8)}${.vars["Employee180"].SocialSecurityNumber?right_pad(9)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace7?right_pad(133)}${.vars["Employee180"].BenefitEventDate?right_pad(10)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace8?right_pad(5)}${.vars["Employee180"].BenefitEventReason?right_pad(4)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace9?right_pad(3)}${'\r\n'}-->
     </ftl:template>
</ftl:freemarker>

I'm not sure if that's what's making the beginning spaces though, or if it's the actual creation of the .txt. file. For that I'm doing this:

<property expression="fn:concat(get-property('ContractNumber'), get-property('DATE_FOR_FILE'), '.txt')" name="transport.vfs.ReplyFileName" scope="transport" type="STRING" xmlns:ns2="http://org.apache.synapse/xsd"/>
    <property name="OUT_ONLY" scope="default" type="STRING" value="true"/>
    <property name="messageType" scope="axis2" type="STRING" value="text/plain"/>
    <send>
        <endpoint name="FileEpr">
            <address uri="vfs:file:///O:/myTestFolder/WSO2 Testing?transport.vfs.Append=true">
                <suspendOnFailure>
                    <initialDuration>-1</initialDuration>
                    <progressionFactor>1</progressionFactor>
                </suspendOnFailure>
                <markForSuspension>
                    <retriesBeforeSuspension>0</retriesBeforeSuspension>
                </markForSuspension>
            </address>
        </endpoint>
    </send>

Any ideas what might be putting those initial spaces in my file? Or even some handy terms to start googling? No luck so far in my searches.

Solution

Try removing the whitespaces from your Freemarker template:

<ftl:freemarker applyOnElement="Employee180">
     <ftl:template>
<!--${.vars["Employee180"].RecordType?right_pad(3)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace1?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].ContractNumber?right_pad(6)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace2?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].EmployeeIDNumber?right_pad(9)?replace("-","")}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace3?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].EmployeeName?right_pad(24)}${.vars["Employee180"].DateOfBirth?right_pad(10)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace4?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].DateOfEmployment?right_pad(10)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace5?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].Sex?right_pad(1)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace6?right_pad(8)}${.vars["Employee180"].SocialSecurityNumber?right_pad(9)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace7?right_pad(133)}${.vars["Employee180"].BenefitEventDate?right_pad(10)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace8?right_pad(5)}${.vars["Employee180"].BenefitEventReason?right_pad(4)}${.vars["Employee180"].BlankSpace9?right_pad(3)}${'\r\n'}-->
     </ftl:template>
</ftl:freemarker>