title: Ignoring tabs and spaces in a python string
body: <p>I need to compare two string in python, first string is read from .xlsx file and second is an output from stdout.readlines().</p>
  
  <p>Below code is to get command output.</p>
  
  <pre><code>stdin, stdout, stderr = client.exec_command(testCommand)
  op = stdout.readlines()
  print("op =\n"+str(op))
  str1 = "".join(op)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Since some commands output begin with \t or might have \t in between .</p>
  
  <p>For Eg : Below command output begin with \t and after LEN there is \t.  </p>
  
  <pre><code>#   PASS_MIN_LEN    Minimum acceptable password length.
  PASS_MIN_LEN    5
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And xlsx file is having </p>
  
  <pre><code># PASS_MIN_LEN Minimum acceptable password length.
  PASS_MIN_LEN 5
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As .xlsx comparison string doesn't have \t, how can i ignore \t while comparing two string. </p>
  
  <pre><code>if cmdOutput== xlsxOutput:
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>is not working.</p>
  
  <p>I tried to trim the cmdOutput with \t, it didn't worked. 
  Any approach can i follow?</p>