From 729c3c02a43c0490a16908c9559f1f0551bd5ddd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Saurabh Mahapatra <98408932+its-100rabh@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2023 18:09:54 +0530
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Create strip.py

---
 strings/strip.py | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 33 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 strings/strip.py

diff --git a/strings/strip.py b/strings/strip.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f6079a246ba6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/strings/strip.py
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+def strip(user_string: str, characters: str | None = None) -> str:
+    """
+    Remove leading and trailing characters (whitespace by default) from a string.
+
+    Args:
+        user_string (str): The input string to be stripped.
+        characters (str, optional): Optional characters to be removed
+                (default is whitespace).
+
+    Returns:
+        str: The stripped string.
+
+    Examples:
+        >>> strip("   hello   ")
+        'hello'
+        >>> strip("...world...", ".")
+        'world'
+        >>> strip("123hello123", "123")
+        'hello'
+    """
+    if characters is None:
+        characters = " \t\n\r"
+
+    start = 0
+    end = len(user_string)
+
+    while start < end and user_string[start] in characters:
+        start += 1
+
+    while end > start and user_string[end - 1] in characters:
+        end -= 1
+
+    return user_string[start:end]

From 0260fb0a741f16d59ced0954c89e66d8e0bf0227 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Saurabh Mahapatra <98408932+its-100rabh@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2023 13:37:43 +0530
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] Update strip.py

---
 strings/strip.py | 6 +++---
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/strings/strip.py b/strings/strip.py
index f6079a246ba6..d4f901f0c7ea 100644
--- a/strings/strip.py
+++ b/strings/strip.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-def strip(user_string: str, characters: str | None = None) -> str:
+def strip(user_string: str, characters: str = " \t\n\r") -> str:
     """
     Remove leading and trailing characters (whitespace by default) from a string.
 
@@ -17,9 +17,9 @@ def strip(user_string: str, characters: str | None = None) -> str:
         'world'
         >>> strip("123hello123", "123")
         'hello'
+        >>> strip("")
+        ''
     """
-    if characters is None:
-        characters = " \t\n\r"
 
     start = 0
     end = len(user_string)