Question

http://ideone.com/Pru2y I need help with a function that cuts off whitespace surrounding newline characters in strings.

I've already got it working in Python but I know I can improve it. Funny thing is that on ideone, I have to subtract 1 from the 'newline' variable to get it working right whereas on my Python implementation (2.7.2) it works correctly without that line.

Answer 1

Have you looked at/studied regular expressions?

Answer 2

If you do not know regex, It may be simpler to use built-in functions:
def trimspaces(s):
nl = '\n'
ss = s.split(nl)
ssr = []
for x in ss:
ssr.append(x.strip())
return nl.join(ssr)

if you know list comprehensions, it is one-liner
return '\n'.join([ x.strip() for x in s.split('\n')])

Answer 3

I knew there was something built-in that would do the trick.... in 1 line! thanks

python has a regex library.... but I don't even know what a regex is :(

Answer 4

Regular Expressions are a pattern matching grammar. They're the basis of Perl. Not the easiest things to learn, but extremely powerful. I use them every day to filter log files and do various tasks. Definitely worth the effort of learning.