How does Python's triple-quote string work?

Question

How should this function be changed to return "123456"?

def f():
    s = """123
    456"""
    return s

UPDATE: Everyone, the question is about understanding how to not have \t or whatever when having a multiline comment, not how to use the re module.

Answer 1

Maybe I'm missing something obvious but what about this:

def f():
    s = """123456"""
    return s

or simply this:

def f():
    s = "123456"
    return s

or even simpler:

def f():
    return "123456"

If that doesn't answer your question, then please clarify what the question is about.

Answer 2

def s():
    return 123456

Should do it.

If you are asking how to change strings to integers this is generally done with int(). In this case you would need to strip the new line in the middle. This can be done in different ways, the easiest is:

int("""123
456""".replace('\n', ''))

Answer 3

re.sub('\D+', '', s)

will return a string, if you want an integer, convert this string with int.

Answer 4

Try

import re

and then

    return re.sub("\s+", "", s)

Answer 5

My guess is:

def f():
    s = """123
    456"""
    return u'123456'

Minimum change and does what is asked for.

Answer 6

def f():
  s = """123\
456"""
  return s

Don't indent any of the blockquote lines after the first line; end every line except the last with a backslash.

Answer 7

Subsequent strings are concatenated, so you can use:

def f():
    s = ("123"
         "456")
    return s

This will allow you to keep indention as you like.

Answer 8

Don't use a triple-quoted string when you don't want extra whitespace, tabs and newlines.

Use implicit continuation, it's more elegant:

def f():
    s = ('123'
         '456')
    return s