strip Examples

The general syntax for this method is:

string_name.strip()

This method returns a copy of the string with any leading or trailing spaces removed. Whitespace characters are those that do not display anything on the screen, such as spaces, tabs, and new lines.

Example

print("  Saint Louis      " + '.')
print("Saint Louis\n")              # \n adds a newline to the string.
print("\tSaint Louis")              # \t adds a tab to the string.

print('----')

print("  Saint Louis      ".strip() + '.')
print("Saint Louis\n".strip())
print("\tSaint Louis".strip())

Console Output

  Saint Louis      .
Saint Louis

    Saint Louis
----
Saint Louis.
Saint Louis
Saint Louis

Note that the strip method does NOT remove any whitespace from the middle of a string.

Example

When typing an email address into a web site, a user might accidentally add a space before and/or after the address. We can clean up the input with the strip method.

user_input = " [email protected] "
email = user_input.strip()
print(email)

Console Output

[email protected]

More Than Spaces

By default, the strip method removes any leading or trailing whitespace from a string. However, we can also remove ANY characters of our choice from the start and end of a string.

The syntax for this is:

string_name.strip('characters')

characters is a string containing all the characters we want to remove.

Example

text = "   ... @ Rutabagas in the spring!!!!*!*!*!*!"

print(text.strip())        # Removes leading whitespace before '...'.
print(text.strip('!'))     # Removes the single trailing '!' character.
print(text.strip('. !'))   # Removes leading and trailing '.', space, and '!'.
print(text.strip('. !*@')) # Removes leading and trailing '.', space, '!', '*', and '@'.

Console Output

... @ Rutabagas in the spring!!!!*!*!*!*!
   ... @ Rutabagas in the spring!!!!*!*!*!*
@ Rutabagas in the spring!!!!*!*!*!*
Rutabagas in the spring