#how to trim a multi line string or a file
s=""" line one\tline two\tline three """
#line1 starts with a space, #2 starts and ends with a tab, #3 ends with a space.
s1=s.splitlines()print s1[' line one', '\tline two\t', 'line three ']
print [i.strip() for i in s1]['line one', 'line two', 'line three']
#more details:
#we could also have used a forloop from the begining:for line in s.splitlines():line=line.strip()process(line)
#we could also be reading a file line by line.. e.g. my_file=open(filename), or with open(filename) as myfile:for line in my_file:line=line.strip()process(line)
#moot point: note splitlines() removed the newline characters, we can keep them by passing True:#although split() will then remove them anyway..s2=s.splitlines(True)print s2[' line one\n', '\tline two\t\n', 'line three ']