string.lstrip stripping too much?

[Fredrik Lundh]

"joram gemma" wrote:

> on windows python 2.4.1 I have the following problem
>
> >>> s = 'D:\\music\\D\\Daniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona'
> >>> print s
> D:\music\D\Daniel Lanois\For the beauty of Wynona
> >>> t = 'D:\\music\\D\\'
> >>> print t
> D:\music\D\
> >>> s.lstrip(t)
> 'aniel Lanois\\For the beauty of Wynona'
> >>>
>
> why does lstrip strip the D of Daniel Lanois also?

because you told it to do that?

>>> help(str.lstrip)
Help on method_descriptor:

lstrip(...)
    S.lstrip([chars]) -> string or unicode

    Return a copy of the string S with leading whitespace removed.
    If chars is given and not None, remove characters in chars instead.
    If chars is unicode, S will be converted to unicode before stripping

(chars is a set of characters, not a prefix.  the string "D:\\music\\D\\"
contains a D, obviously.  to strip off a prefix, use s[len(prefix):])

</F>