How can I efficiently remove unwanted whitespace from a string in Python?

Trimming Whitespace with Python

When working with strings, it's often necessary to remove unwanted whitespace characters, such as spaces and tabs. Python provides several built-in functions to help you achieve this.

str.strip()

The str.strip() function removes whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, newlines, and carriage returns) from both sides of a string. For example:

<code class="python">s = "  \t example string\t  "
s = s.strip()
print(s)  # Output: "example string"</code>

str.rstrip()

The str.rstrip() function removes whitespace characters from the right side of a string. For example:

<code class="python">s = "example string   "
s = s.rstrip()
print(s)  # Output: "example string"</code>

str.lstrip()

The str.lstrip() function removes whitespace characters from the left side of a string. For example:

<code class="python">s = "   example string"
s = s.lstrip()
print(s)  # Output: "example string"</code>

Custom Character Removal

You can specify custom characters to remove using the optional argument in the strip(), rstrip(), and lstrip() functions. For example:

<code class="python">s = " \t\n example string\t  "
s = s.strip(' \t\n')
print(s)  # Output: "example string"</code>

Regex for Whitespace Removal

If you need to remove whitespace characters from the middle of a string, you can use regular expressions. For example:

<code class="python">import re
s = " example  string "
s = re.sub('[\s+]', '', s)
print(s)  # Output: "astringexample"</code>

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