python - What is the pythonic way to count the leading spaces in a string?

Question

I know I can count the leading spaces in a string with this:

>>> a = "   foo bar baz qua   
"
>>> print "Leading spaces", len(a) - len(a.lstrip())
Leading spaces 3
>>>

But is there a more pythonic way?

Answer 1

Your way is pythonic but incorrect, it will also count other whitespace chars, to count only spaces be explicit a.lstrip(' '):

a = "   
foo bar baz qua   
"
print "Leading spaces", len(a) - len(a.lstrip())
>>> Leading spaces 7
print "Leading spaces", len(a) - len(a.lstrip(' '))
>>> Leading spaces 3