diff --git a/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpCpd.php b/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpCpd.php
index 953c3ea7..125e13eb 100644
--- a/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpCpd.php
+++ b/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpCpd.php
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ class PhpCpd implements \PHPCI\Plugin
         if (count($this->ignore)) {
             $map = function ($item) {
                 // remove the trailing slash
-                $item = (substr($item, -1) == '/' ? substr($item, 0, -1) : $item);
+                $item = rtrim($item, '/');
 
                 if (is_file($this->path . '/' . $item)) {
                     return ' --names-exclude ' . $item;
diff --git a/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpLoc.php b/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpLoc.php
index 76887493..eb5af6ff 100644
--- a/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpLoc.php
+++ b/PHPCI/Plugin/PhpLoc.php
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ class PhpLoc implements PHPCI\Plugin, PHPCI\ZeroConfigPlugin
         $ignore = '';
         if (count($this->phpci->ignore)) {
             $map    = function ($item) {
-                return ' --exclude ' . (substr($item, -1) == '/' ? substr($item, 0, -1) : $item);
+                return ' --exclude ' . rtrim($item, '/');
             };
             $ignore = array_map($map, $this->phpci->ignore);