Removing first x characters from string?

Another way (depending on your actual needs): If you want to pop the first n characters and save both the popped characters and the modified string:

s = 'lipsum'
n = 3
a, s = s[:n], s[n:]
print(a)
# lip
print(s)
# sum

>>> x = 'lipsum'
>>> x.replace(x[:3], '')
'sum'

>>> text = 'lipsum'
>>> text[3:]
'sum'

See the official documentation on strings for more information and this SO answer for a concise summary of the notation.