<s>[INST] Split by comma and strip whitespace in Python I have some python code that splits on comma, but doesn't strip the whitespace:
>>> string = "blah, lots  ,  of ,  spaces, here "
>>> mylist = string.split(',')
>>> print mylist
['blah', ' lots  ', '  of ', '  spaces', ' here ']

I would rather end up with whitespace removed like this:
['blah', 'lots', 'of', 'spaces', 'here']

I am aware that I could loop through the list and strip() each item but, as this is Python, I'm guessing there's a quicker, easier and more elegant way of doing it.
 [/INST] Use list comprehension -- simpler, and just as easy to read as a for loop.
my_string = "blah, lots  ,  of ,  spaces, here "
[x.strip() for x in my_string.split(',')]

See: Python docs on List Comprehension
A good 2 second explanation of list comprehension.
 </s>