def strip_prefix(string: str, prefix: str) ->str:
    """Returns a copy of the string from which the multi-character prefix has been stripped.

    Use strip_prefix() instead of lstrip() to remove a substring (instead of individual characters)
    from the beginning of a string, if the substring is present.  lstrip() does not match substrings
    but rather treats a substring argument as a set of characters.

    :param string: The string from which to strip the specified prefix.
    :param prefix: The substring to strip from the left of string, if present.
    :return: The string with prefix stripped from the left, if present.
    """
    if string.startswith(prefix):
        return string[len(prefix):]
    else:
        return string
