NEWBIE: Tokenize command output

[Tim Chase]

>>starLines = [line for line in p.readlines() if line.startswith("*")]
> 
> files are iterators, so no need to use readlines() (unless it's an old
> Python version of course):
> 
> starLines = [line for line in p if line.startswith("*")]

Having started with some old Python, it's one of those 
things I "know", but my coding fingers haven't yet put into 
regular practice. :)

>>or you may optionally want to prune of the "\n" characters in the process:
>>
>>starLines = [line[:-1] for line in p.readlines() if line.startswith("*")]
> 
> *please* use str.rstrip() for this:
> starLines = [line.rstrip() for line in p if line.startswith("*")]

They can yield different things, no?

 >>> s = "abc  \n"
 >>> s[:-1]
'abc  '
 >>> s.rstrip()
'abc'
 >>> s.[:-1] == s.rstrip()
False

If trailing space matters, you don't want to throw it away 
with rstrip().

Otherwise, just to be informed, what advantage does rstrip() 
have over [:-1] (if the two cases are considered 
uneventfully the same)?

Thanks,

-tkc