import string


def lstrip(s):
	"""strip whitespace from the left hand side of a string, returning a tuple (string,	number_of_chars_stripped) for S"""
	num_stripped = 0
	for i in s:
		# for bytes
		char = chr(i) if type(i) == int else i
		if char in string.whitespace:
			s = s[1:]
			num_stripped += 1
		else:
			break
	return (s, num_stripped)