On Sun, 15 May 2005 15:24:25 +0200, "joram gemma" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hello, > >on windows python 2.4.1 I have the following problem > >>>> s = 'D:\\music\\D\\Daniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona' >>>> print s >D:\music\D\Daniel Lanois\For the beauty of Wynona >>>> t = 'D:\\music\\D\\' >>>> print t >D:\music\D\ >>>> s.lstrip(t) >'aniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona' >>>> > >why does lstrip strip the D of Daniel Lanois also? > Because the lstrip argument is a set of characters in the form of a string, not a single substring to replace from the left. Note: (repeating your example to start with) >>> s = 'D:\\music\\D\\Daniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona' >>> print s D:\music\D\Daniel Lanois\For the beauty of Wynona >>> t = 'D:\\music\\D\\' >>> print t D:\music\D\ >>> s.lstrip(t) 'aniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona' Now we make an equivalent lstrip argument from your t argument >>> t2 = ''.join(sorted(set(t))) >>> print t2 :D\cimsu Note that there is only one of each character in t2 (e.g. 'D' and '\\') And the result is the same for t and t2: >>> s.lstrip(t) 'aniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona' >>> s.lstrip(t2) 'aniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona' If you want to replace an exact prefix, a regex could be a simple way to get the startswith check and replace in one whack. Regards, Bengt Richter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
