How do I remove a trailing newline?

Try the method rstrip() (see doc Python 2 and Python 3)

>>> 'test string\n'.rstrip()
'test string'

Python’s rstrip() method strips all kinds of trailing whitespace by default, not just one newline as Perl does with chomp.

>>> 'test string \n \r\n\n\r \n\n'.rstrip()
'test string'

To strip only newlines:

>>> 'test string \n \r\n\n\r \n\n'.rstrip('\n')
'test string \n \r\n\n\r '

In addition to rstrip(), there are also the methods strip() and lstrip(). Here is an example with the three of them:

>>> s = "   \n\r\n  \n  abc   def \n\r\n  \n  "
>>> s.strip()
'abc   def'
>>> s.lstrip()
'abc   def \n\r\n  \n  '
>>> s.rstrip()
'   \n\r\n  \n  abc   def'