Why does Python's rstrip remove more characters than expected?

Question

According to the docs the function will strip that sequence of chars from the right side of the string.
The expression 'https://odinultra.ai/api'.rstrip('/api') should result in the string 'https://odinultra.ai'.

Instead here is what we get in Python 3:

>>> 'https://odinultra.ai/api'.rstrip('/api')
'https://odinultra.'

https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.lstrip : "The chars argument is not a prefix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped" (then they add an example) — Demi-Lune, Aug 31 '23 at 12:26
@CorneliuMaftuleac Perhaps `print("piiiiiiieeeee".rstrip("ei"))` would help clear it up. — JonSG, Aug 31 '23 at 12:29

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 31 '23 at 12:29

1

rstrip('/api') won't remove the suffix /api, but a sequence made up of any of the characters /, a, p or i from the end of the string. This isn't a bug, but the documented behavior:

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

For your usecase, you should use removesuffix instead:

'https://odinultra.ai/api'.removesuffix('/api')

answered Aug 31 '23 at 12:29

Mureinik

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I see now. Makes sense. The function argument is a bit counterintuitive. Should be a list or a set not a string. – Corneliu Maftuleac Aug 31 '23 at 12:31

Why does Python's rstrip remove more characters than expected?

1 Answers1