Python str.strip() with regex filtering unexpected characters

Question

I\'m running into an issue that I hope is simple, however I\'ve run into a wall trying to figure it out. I\'m attempting to strip the DateTime timestamp from the beginning

Answer 1

b is '[Wed Dec 01 10:24:24 2010]' so then you strip any of the characters that are in b from c so everything bar ct get removed:

'[Wed Dec 01 10:24:24 2010] ceeeeest'
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
 # all in [Wed Dec 01 10:24:24 2010]

So only st remain as they are the only two characters no in b, strip will keep stripping from both ends until it hits char not in the set:

In [3]: s = "fooboaroof"

In [4]: s.strip("foo")
Out[4]: 'boar'

If the date is always at the start which it must be if you are using match, when you get a match the simplest would be to split:

line2 = '[Wed Dec 01 10:24:24 2010] ceeeeest'

print(line2.split("] ", 1)[1])

Or:

 print(line2[len(a.group()):].lstrip())