diff --git a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java
index ca6bc2920..c4af0ffc9 100644
--- a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java
+++ b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java
@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@ public class DelimitedLineTokenizer extends AbstractLineTokenizer
         int start = offset;
         int len = count;
 
-        while ((start < (start + len)) && (chars[start] <= ' ')) {
+        while ((start < (start + len - 1)) && (chars[start] <= ' ')) {
             start++;
             len--;
         }
diff --git a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java
index 2dedcf767..f10cd6761 100644
--- a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java
+++ b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java
@@ -46,6 +46,12 @@ public class DelimitedLineTokenizerTests {
 		assertTrue(TOKEN_MATCHES, tokens.readString(1).equals(""));
 	}
 
+    @Test
+    public void testBlankString() {
+        FieldSet tokens = tokenizer.tokenize("   ");
+        assertTrue(TOKEN_MATCHES, tokens.readString(0).equals(""));
+    }
+
 	@Test
 	public void testInvalidConstructorArgument() {
 		try {
@@ -130,20 +136,20 @@ public class DelimitedLineTokenizerTests {
 		FieldSet line = tokenizer.tokenize("a b c");
 		assertEquals(3, line.getFieldCount());
 	}
-	
+
 	@Test(expected=IllegalArgumentException.class)
 	public void testDelimitedLineTokenizerNullDelimiter() {
 		AbstractLineTokenizer tokenizer = new DelimitedLineTokenizer(null);
 		tokenizer.tokenize("a b c");
 	}
-	
+
 	@Test(expected=IllegalArgumentException.class)
 	public void testDelimitedLineTokenizerEmptyString() throws Exception {
 		DelimitedLineTokenizer tokenizer = new DelimitedLineTokenizer("");
 		tokenizer.afterPropertiesSet();
 		tokenizer.tokenize("a b c");
 	}
-	
+
 	@Test
 	public void testDelimitedLineTokenizerString() {
 		AbstractLineTokenizer tokenizer = new DelimitedLineTokenizer(" b ");
@@ -386,4 +392,4 @@ public class DelimitedLineTokenizerTests {
 		assertEquals("value2\nvalue2cont", line.readString(1));
 	}
 
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}