Strip removing more characters than expected

Question

Can anyone explain what\'s going on here:

s = \'REFPROP-MIX:METHANOL&WATER\'
s.lstrip(\'REFPROP-MIX\')   # this returns \':METHANOL&WATER\' as expect         


        

Answer 1

The method mentioned by @PadraicCunningham is a good workaround for the particular problem as stated.

Just split by the separating character and select the last value:

s = 'REFPROP-MIX:METHANOL&WATER'
res = s.split(':', 1)[-1]  # 'METHANOL&WATER'