nicer way to remove prefix of a string if it exists

[MRAB]

News123 wrote:
> I wondered about a potentially nicer way of removing a prefix of a
> string if it exists.
> 
> 
> Here what I tried so far:
> 
> 
> def rm1(prefix,txt):
>     if txt.startswith(prefix):
>         return txt[len(prefix):]
>     return txt
> 
> 
> for f in [ 'file:///home/me/data.txt' , '/home/me/data.txt' ]:
>     # method 1 inline
>     prefix = "file://"
>     if f.startswith(prefix):
> 	    rslt = f[len(prefix):]
>     else
>         rsl = f
>     # method 2 as function
>     rslt = rm1('file://',f)
> 
> 
> Is there any nicer function than above rm1()?

No.

> Is there any nicer inline statement rhan my method 1' ?
> 
You could write:

     rsl = f[len(prefix):] if f.startswith(prefix) else f

in recent versions of Python, but the function is neater.