Why is my python format %s taking no space?
<p>I'm working with PyCrypto, and I seem to be successfully decrypting my data. However, the string I receive seems to behave strangely:</p>

<pre><code>...
plaintext = cipher.decrypt(encrypted)
print 'plaintext length is %u' % len(plaintext)
print 'plaintext: %s' % plaintext
print 'plaintext is "%s"' % plaintext
</code></pre>

<p>The plaintext has the string I expect ("POEorOPE"), but the output seems odd:</p>

<pre><code>plaintext length is 16
plaintext: POEorOPE
plaintext is ""OEorOPE
</code></pre>

<p>Why does the string in the third print statement seem to take up zero space, and therefore have its first character overwritten by what I thought would be the closing quote? Is there something else going on here with what I now have stored in plaintext?</p>

<p><strong>Edit:</strong></p>

<p>Thanks for the comments, I see what's going on. (Though why I have backspace characters in my string I don't know.)</p>

<pre><code>print repr(plaintext)

'POEorOPE\x08\x08\x08\x08\x08\x08\x08\x08'
</code></pre>
