Question

Possible Duplicate:
python .rstrip removes one additional character

i have a string vtype defined as

vtype = "vidis.fit"

i want to strip the final dis.fit away, so

vtype.rstrip("dis.fit")

but the end result is v, rather than vi, the one I expected/wanted. I’m a bit confused about this, anyone?

EDIT

Thanks everyone. I guess the reason why it confused me in the first place is that, the naming of lstrip and rstrip seems suggesting some sequence, although it only matters to white spaces.

Answer 1

rstrip actually takes a sequence of characters at the end of a string to strip, not a specific string to strip. It’s removing the i because i is in the sequence of characters passed in.

For example, the order of characters in rstrip doesn’t matter:

>>> vtype = "vidis.fit"
>>> vtype.rstrip("dis.fit")
'v'
>>> vtype.rstrip("ditfs.")
'v'

Nor does the number of times a character is in it:

>>> vtype.rstrip("ditffffsssss.")
'v'

As the docs specify:

The chars argument is not a suffix; rather, all combinations of its
values are stripped

EDIT: And for fun, if you really want to solve the “how do I remove a string at the end of a string” problem, use rfind with slicing:

>>> vtype[:vtype.rfind("dis.fit")]
'vi'