# Remove a Trailing Newline From a String in Python

> Use Python str.rstrip to strip trailing newlines and whitespace, with lstrip for leading characters and strip to clean both ends of a string

**URL:** https://sentry.io/answers/how-do-i-remove-a-trailing-newline-from-a-string-in-python/

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## 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`](https://docs.python.org/3/builtins/stdtypes.html#str.rstrip) for this purpose. By default, it will remove trailing newlines, carriage returns, and spaces.

```python
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:

```python
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:

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

Python also provides an [`lstrip`](https://docs.python.org/3/builtins/stdtypes.html#str.lstrip) method, which performs the same operation on leading characters, and [`strip`](https://docs.python.org/3/builtins/stdtypes.html#str.strip), which removes leading and trailing characters from the string. For example:

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

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

```python
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:

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

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*Source: [sentry.io/answers/how-do-i-remove-a-trailing-newline-from-a-string-in-python/](https://sentry.io/answers/how-do-i-remove-a-trailing-newline-from-a-string-in-python/)*