How do I remove a trailing newline from a string in Python

David Y.

The Problem

Using Python, how can I remove one or more newline characters at the end of a string, if present?

The Solution

Python provides the string method rstrip for this purpose. By default, it will remove trailing newlines, carriage returns, and spaces.

my_string = "Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.rstrip() # will produce "Hello world!"

We can optionally provide a specific set of characters for rstrip to remove. So, to remove only trailing newlines, leaving all other characters intact, we can write the following:

my_string = "Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.rstrip("\n") # will produce "Hello world! \r"

We can use any number of characters in any order here and they will be removed from the end of the string. For example:

my_string = "Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.rstrip("\n\r !d") # will produce "Hello worl"

Python also provides an lstrip method, which performs the same operation on leading characters, and strip, which removes leading and trailing characters from the string. For example:

my_string = "\r\n\n Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.lstrip() # will be "Hello world! \r\n\n"
my_string = "\r\n\n Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.rstrip() # will be "\r\n\n Hello world!"
my_string = "\r\n\n Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.strip() # will be "Hello world!"

We can use lstrip and rstrip together to remove leading and trailing characters while preserving characters in the middle of the string, as below:

my_string = "\r\n\n Hello world! \r\n\n" my_string = my_string.lstrip().rstrip() # will be "Hello world!"
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