Python Trim String - rstrip(), lstrip(), strip() With Examples

Python provides three methods that can be used to trim whitespaces from the string object.

Python Trim String

  • strip(): returns a new string after removing any leading and trailing whitespaces including tabs (t).
  • rstrip(): returns a new string with trailing whitespace removed. It’s easier to remember as removing white spaces from “right” side of the string.
  • lstrip(): returns a new string with leading whitespace removed, or removing whitespaces from the “left” side of the string.

All of these methods don’t accept any arguments to remove whitespaces. If a character argument is provided, then they will remove that characters from the string from leading and trailing places.

Let’s look at a simple example of trimming whitespaces from the string in Python.


s1 = '  abc  '
print(f'String ='{s1}'')
print(f'After Removing Leading Whitespaces String ='{s1.lstrip()}'')
print(f'After Removing Trailing Whitespaces String ='{s1.rstrip()}'')
print(f'After Trimming Whitespaces String ='{s1.strip()}'')

Output:


String ='  abc  '
After Removing Leading Whitespaces String ='abc  '
After Removing Trailing Whitespaces String ='  abc'
After Trimming Whitespaces String ='abc'

Let’s look at some more examples with strings having a new-line and tabs.


>>> s1 = '  Xn  Y  nZ  t'
>>> s1.strip()
'Xn  Y  nZ'
>>> s1.rstrip()
'  Xn  Y  nZ'
>>> s1.lstrip()
'Xn  Y  nZ  t'

By admin

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