filename white-space fix

adding a strip() when grabbing the filename; if the filename accidently has a space, line 124 fhandle = open(self.fname, self.mode) will fail
What about if the filename really has a leading space? I know its unlikely but it seems like we are solving the wrong problem here. If the user asked us to open the wrong filename (i.e. by adding a space before/after) we should not be trying to second guess and fix their error? Its better to just fail hard here. Do you think there are situations where extra spaces can be accidentally added without the user meaning to?