php concatenation is adding extra space at the end of the string

I am trying to create a function in php with the purpose of outputting a URL wrapped in quotation marks " ".

I am concatenating an existing URL with a variable but php is adding an extra space at the end of the first string before concatenating.

Troubleshooting:

I already tried str_replace() and rtrim() but no success.

I tried the instructions at Why does fgets adds a space at the end of string? and it does generate the last blank space like so

[0a]
[22] "

I am still unable to resolve it with the functions proposed. The final goal is to get the URL without spaces between .../data.txt and "

Here is the function with added troubleshooting code:

<?php
function meteoURL () {
    global $nomFichier;
    $meteo = "http://www.redacted/" . $nomFichier[1];

    echo gettype($meteo); //string

    ?> <br> <?php
    echo gettype($nomFichier[1]); //string

    ?> <br> <?php
    $new_meteo1 = '"' . $meteo . '"';
    $new_meteo2 = '"' . $meteo . 'test';

    $fichierMeteo1 = str_replace(' ', '', ($new_meteo1));
    $fichierMeteo2 = rtrim($new_meteo2);

    ?> <br> <?php
    echo rtrim($new_meteo1);
    //outputs with empty space between data.txt and "

    //"http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~dift1147/pages/TPS/tp1/data.txt "


    ?> <br> <?php
    echo rtrim($new_meteo2);

    //outputs with empty space between data.txt and test

    //"http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~dift1147/pages/TPS/tp1/data.txt test


    ?> <br> <?php
    echo "after rtrim(): " . $fichierMeteo2;

    ?> <br> <?php

    //this part is for troubleshooting only

    foreach(str_split($fichierMeteo1) as $chr) {
        printf("[%02x] %s <br />",ord($chr),$chr);
    }

}

and here is the browser output:

string
string

"http://redacted/data.txt "
"http://redacted/data.txt test
after rtrim(): "http://redacted/data.txt test
[22] "
[68] h
[74] t
[74] t
[70] p
[3a] :
[2f] /
[2f] /
... redacted
[2e] .
[74] t
[78] x
[74] t
[0a]
[22] "