title: Python: strip a wildcard word
body: <p>I have strings with words separated by points. 
  Example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>string1 = 'one.two.three.four.five.six.eight' 
  string2 = 'one.two.hello.four.five.six.seven'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How do I use this string in a python method, assigning one word as wildcard (because in this case for example the third word varies). I am thinking of regular expressions, but do not know if the approach like I have it in mind is possible in python.
  For example: </p>
  
  <pre><code>string1.lstrip("one.two.[wildcard].four.")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>or </p>
  
  <pre><code>string2.lstrip("one.two.'/.*/'.four.")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(I know that I can extract this by <code>split('.')[-3:]</code>, but I am looking for a general way, lstrip is just an example)</p>