title: What is the pythonic way to count the leading spaces in a string?
body: <p>I know I can count the leading spaces in a string with this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; a = "   foo bar baz qua   \n"
  &gt;&gt;&gt; print "Leading spaces", len(a) - len(a.lstrip())
  Leading spaces 3
  &gt;&gt;&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But is there a more pythonic way?</p>