How do I trim whitespace from a string in Python

 

When working with Python strings, a very common question is how to trim whitespace from a string. Whitespace characters are space (), tab (\t), newline (\n) and return characters  (\r). 

Here are 3 different methods to trim whitespace from a string in Python.

Remove whitespace from right and left:

Use the method str.strip() to remove white space characters from the beginning and end of a string.

# original string

my_string = '  Hello  '  

 

# cutting spaces in the string

new_string = my_string.strip()    

 

print(new_string)

Remove whitespace from left side :

Leading whitespace characters are the whitespace characters at the beginning of a string. To remove them, use the str.lstrip() method.

# original string

my_string = '  Hello  '  

 

# cutting spaces in the string

new_string = my_string.lstrip()    

 

print(new_string)

Remove whitespace from right side

Trailing whitespace characters are the whitespace characters at the end of a string. To remove them, use the str.rstrip() method.

# original string

my_string = '  Hello  '  

 

# cutting spaces in the string

new_string = my_string.rstrip()