Strip does not work when applied on a string read from a text file.

[perfringo]

What is desired result?

• Why create so many variables if you need only one?
  
• Why iterate over all lines in file and retain only last row status (every iteration of for-loop overwrites value of check and you will have it only for last row)?.
  
• What do you mean by "9 character string becomes 19 character due to added spaces when code reads it from the file"?
  

First word in line is 9 characters (except in line 9 where it's 10)

with open('data_log.txt', 'r', encoding='UTF-8') as f:
    for line in f:
        value = line.split()[0]
        print(len(value))
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
10
9
9