def load_input(file: str, remove_lines_breaks: bool = False) -> list[str]:
    """Function to load input with optional removal of line breaks."""

    with open(file) as f:

        lines = f.readlines()

    if remove_lines_breaks:

        lines_processed = [x.replace("\n", "") for x in lines]

        return lines_processed

    else:

        return lines