I agree. It's a shame. I really liked this problem.

edit: nvm I have no idea what I'm talking about

Where do you read leading spaces must be removed?

Any whitespace at the end of the line should also be stripped out.

Use markdown formatting when posting code, otherwise spaces are collapsed and we can't see what you wanted to show:

solution("'\n# watermelons ,  , \noranges watermelons watermelons watermelons bananas\npears bananas pears lemons # ?", ["'", "@", ".", "-", "^"])
Expected: "\n# watermelons ,  , \noranges watermelons watermelons watermelons bananas\npears bananas pears lemons # ?"
     got: "\n# watermelons ,  ,\noranges watermelons watermelons watermelons bananas\npears bananas pears lemons # ?"

Which language are you talking about?

You should write tests !

Yes, the kata specifically mentions 0 < str length < 1000

That's true. But the Kata description clearly specifies the argument would not be an empty string.