from the python manual: strip( [chars]) The chars argument is not a prefix or suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped: >>> 'www.example.com'.strip('cmowz.') 'example'
in your case since the letter 'H' is in your [chars] and the name starts with an H it gets stripped, but with the second one the first letter is a K so it stops there. Maybe you can use: >>> a[31:] 'Hughes. John</FONT></TD>\r\n' >>> b[31:] 'Kim, Dong-Hyun</FONT></TD>\r\n' but maybe what you REALLY want is: >>> a[31:-14] 'Hughes. John' >>> b[31:-14] 'Kim, Dong-Hyun' -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list