[Python-ideas] New explicit methods to trim strings

[Rhodri James]

On 02/04/2019 18:55, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
 >> = Me
>   > 3. My most common use case (not very common at that) is for stripping
>   > annoying prompts off text-based APIs.  I'm happy using
>   > .startswith() and string slicing for that, though your point about
>   > the repeated use of the string to be stripped off (or worse,
>   > hard-coding its length) is well made.
> 
> I don't understand this use case, specifically the opposition to
> hard-coding the length.  Although hard-coding the length wouldn't
> occur to me in many cases, since I'd use
> 
>      # remove my bash prompt
>      prompt_re = re.compile(r'^[^\u0000-\u001f\u007f]+ \d\d:\d\d\$ ')
>      lines = [prompt_re.sub('', line) for line in lines]

For me it's more often like

     input = get_line_from_UART()
     if input.startswith("INFO>"):
         input = input[5:]
     do_something_useful(input)

which is error-prone when you cut and paste for a different prompt 
elsewhere and forget to change the slice to match.

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd