title: python lxml xpath returning escape characters in list with text
body: <p>Before last week, my experience with Python had been very limited to large database files on our network, and suddenly I am thrust into the world of trying to extract information from html tables. </p>
  
  <p>After a lot of reading, I chose to use lxml and xpath with Python 2.7 to retrieve the data in question.  I have retrieved one field using the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>xpath = "//table[@id='resultsTbl1']/tr[position()&gt;1]/td[@id='row_0_partNumber']/child::text()" 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which produced the following list:</p>
  
  <pre><code>['\r\n\t\tBAR18FILM/BKN', '\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t', '\r\n\t\t\t', '\r\n\t\t\t', '\r\n\t\t\t', '\r\n\t\t\t', '\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I recognized the CR/LF and tab escape characters, I was wondering how to avoid them?</p>