Removing specific matching substring from a string python

Question

I want to remove a matching substring from a string in python .

Here is what I have tried so far:

abc= "20160622125255102D87Z2"

if "Z2" in abc:
    abc.rstrip("Z2")
    print(abc)

But this doesn't work. Kindly help

Answer 1

rstrip() returns a new string; it does not modify the existing string.

You have to reassign abc to contain the new string:

abc = abc.rstrip("Z2")

Answer 2

It's because rstrip returns a new string. Try

abc = abc.rstrip("Z2")

Also, if the substring you want to remove could appear anywhere in the string (as opposed to being at the end always), you might instead want to use

abc.replace("Z2","")

Answer 3

You can use regular expressions. Which will remove Z2 from the end as well as cases where it's somewhere in the string.

import re
abc= "20160622125255102D87Z2"
abc = re.sub('Z2', '', abc)
print(abc)