How can I remove a trailing newline?

Question

What is the Python equivalent of Perl\'s chomp function, which removes the last character of a string if it is a newline?

Answer 1

If you are concerned about speed (say you have a looong list of strings) and you know the nature of the newline char, string slicing is actually faster than rstrip. A little test to illustrate this:

import time

loops = 50000000

def method1(loops=loops):
    test_string = 'num\n'
    t0 = time.time()
    for num in xrange(loops):
        out_sting = test_string[:-1]
    t1 = time.time()
    print('Method 1: ' + str(t1 - t0))

def method2(loops=loops):
    test_string = 'num\n'
    t0 = time.time()
    for num in xrange(loops):
        out_sting = test_string.rstrip()
    t1 = time.time()
    print('Method 2: ' + str(t1 - t0))

method1()
method2()

Output:

Method 1: 3.92700004578
Method 2: 6.73000001907