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Use replace() to remove an exact substring throughout a string, a strip() method to trim characters from its edges, removeprefix() or removesuffix() to remove one exact prefix or suffix, and translate() to delete selected characters anywhere. Python strings are not changed in place, so assign the returned string if you need to keep the result.
Choose a method by where and what you want to remove
| Goal | Method | What the argument means |
|---|---|---|
| Remove an exact substring wherever it appears | replace(old, '') |
An exact substring; all matches by default |
| Remove selected characters at either edge | strip(chars) |
A set of individual characters allowed to be trimmed |
| Remove selected characters at the left or right edge | lstrip(chars) or rstrip(chars) |
A set of individual characters allowed to be trimmed from that edge |
| Remove one exact prefix or suffix | removeprefix(prefix) or removesuffix(suffix) |
One exact affix; requires Python 3.9 or later |
| Delete selected characters anywhere | translate(str.maketrans('', '', chars)) |
A set of individual characters to delete throughout the string |
Remove an exact substring with replace()
replace(old, new) returns a string with occurrences of old replaced by new. Pass an empty string as new to delete the match. By default, every occurrence is replaced; the optional third argument limits how many replacements are made.
text = "one-abc-two-abc"
cleaned = text.replace("abc", "") # "one--two-"
first_only = text.replace("abc", "", 1) # "one--two-abc"This targets the exact sequence you pass, even when it occurs in the middle of the string. It is a different operation from trimming characters off an edge.
Trim characters from the ends with strip()
Use strip(chars) to trim characters from both ends, lstrip(chars) for the left edge, or rstrip(chars) for the right edge. The chars argument is treated as a set of individual characters, not as one literal prefix or suffix. Trimming continues at the selected edge while its next character belongs to that set.
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text = "...Hello, Python!!!"
both = text.strip(".! ") # "Hello, Python"
left = text.lstrip(". ") # "Hello, Python!!!"
right = text.rstrip("! ") # "...Hello, Python"With no argument, these methods trim whitespace at the relevant edge. Providing a character set changes what can be trimmed; for example, strip(" .,!? ") trims those punctuation and space characters from both ends, not from the middle.
Why rstrip(suffix) may remove too much
If you mean a literal suffix, do not use rstrip(suffix): its argument is a character set. The Python documentation illustrates the difference: 'Monty Python'.rstrip(' Python') produces 'M', because those characters are stripped repeatedly from the right. For one exact suffix, use removesuffix().
Remove one exact prefix or suffix
Use removeprefix(prefix) or removesuffix(suffix) when the target is one exact string at the beginning or end. Each removes a single matching affix and otherwise leaves the content unchanged. Both methods are available in Python 3.9 and later.
text = "prefix:report.txt"
without_prefix = text.removeprefix("prefix:") # "report.txt"
without_suffix = text.removesuffix(".txt") # "prefix:report"For Python versions earlier than 3.9, check the beginning or end explicitly before slicing:
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without_prefix = text[len(prefix):] if text.startswith(prefix) else text
suffix = ".txt"
without_suffix = text[:-len(suffix)] if text.endswith(suffix) else textDelete selected characters throughout the string
To delete any occurrence of specific characters, wherever they appear, create a translation table that maps those characters to deletion and pass it to translate(). The third argument to str.maketrans() defines characters to map to None.
text = "beautiful day"
cleaned = text.translate(str.maketrans("", "", "aeiou"))
# "btfl dy"This removes each listed character everywhere, unlike strip(), which works only at an edge. It also differs from replace(), which targets an exact substring.
Keep the result by assigning it
Python strings are immutable: these string methods return a new string rather than modifying the original. To retain the changed value, assign the result to a variable, as in text = text.replace("x", "") or cleaned = text.strip("."). If you do not assign or otherwise use the returned value, the original variable still refers to its original string.
Python reference
The official Python 3.14.8 built-in types documentation describes the behavior of these string methods and str.maketrans(). It identifies removeprefix() and removesuffix() as added in Python 3.9.
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