String comparison problem

[Jeff Epler]

You should use "repr" to see the exact byte sequence contained in the
strings.

If the strings really contain the same sequence of bytes, then they are
equal.  There must be some difference between them that is
non-printable.

>>> s1 = "01b7ebfc27437a90cc421c50df8f9ac5"
>>> s2 = "01b7ebfc27437a90cc421c50df8f9ac5"
>>> s1 == s2
1

But what you'll actually find is that this statement
> 	print string.lower(md5sum(f_md5))
will print a different value the first and second times you execute it.

Jeff