python strip() seems doesn't working as expected

Question

I do my apologizes for the dummy question, but i'm experiencing a weird problem with a simple script that seems correct but doesnt' works as expected

#!/usr/bin/python
import json,sys
obj=json.load(sys.stdin)
oem=obj["_id"]
models = obj.get("modelli", 0)

if models != 0:
        for marca in obj["modelli"]:
                brand=obj["modelli"][marca]
                for serie in brand:
                        ser=brand[serie]
                        for modello in ser:
                                model=modello
                                marca = marca.strip()
                                modello = modello.strip()
                                serie = serie.strip()
                                print oem,";",marca,";",serie,";",modello

It should just cycle an array from a json var and print the output in csv format, but i still get the string containing one withespace at the begin and at the end of each variable (oem, marca, serie, modello) like this

KD-CH884 ; Dell ;  ; 966

This is my very first script in python, i've just followed some simple directives, so i'm missing something or what? Any guess?

Answer 1

The print statement is putting in that whitespace.

From the docs here:

A space is written before each object is (converted and) written, unless the output system believes it is positioned at the beginning of a line.

Use ';'.join(...) instead.

Answer 2

try this:

print "%s;%s;%s;%s" % (oem,marca,serie,modello)

or

print ";".join([oem,marca,serie,modello])

Answer 3

Python is actually stripping the whitespaces out. Its just the print statement:

print oem,";",marca,";",serie,";",modello

.. that is reintroducing the spaces. Try concatenating the variables and display them.

Answer 4

';'.join(filter(None, [oem, marca, serie, modello]))

It will only place the semicolon between two existing strings. If a variable holds the empty string after being stripped '', filtering the None will take it out of the list.