str.strip()

str.strip(characters)

Remove spaces at the beginning and at the end of the string.

Input:: characters : String, optional; A set of characters to remove as leading/trailing characters. Default is white space " ".
Returns:: String with removed leading and trailing space or specified characters.
Return Type:: String

"     panda     ".strip()

"panda"

# The 'y' in 'baby' does not get stripped since its in the middle.
"...baby panda?!   ".strip(".?! y")

"baby panda"