Topic: Strings in python

Strings
Strings in python are surrounded by either single quotation marks, or double

quotation marks.

'hello' is the same as "hello".

You can display a string literal with the print() function:

Example

print("It's alright")

print("He is called 'Johnny'")

a = "Hello"

print(a)

Multiline Strings

You can assign a multiline string to a variable by using three quotes:

Example

You can use three double quotes:

a = """Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."""

print(a)

Strings are Arrays

Like many other popular programming languages, strings in Python are

arrays of bytes representing unicode characters.

However, Python does not have a character data type, a single character is

simply a string with a length of 1.

Square brackets can be used to access elements of the string.

Example

Get the character at position 1 (remember that the first character has the

position 0):
a = "Hello, World!"

print(a[1])

Looping Through a String

Since strings are arrays, we can loop through the characters in a string, with

a for loop.

Example

Loop through the letters in the word "banana":

for x in "banana":

print(x)

String Length

To get the length of a string, use the len() function.

Example

The len() function returns the length of a string:

a = "Hello, World!"

print(len(a))

String Slicing

You can return a range of characters by using the slice syntax.

Specify the start index and the end index, separated by a colon, to return a

part of the string.

Example

Get the characters from position 2 to position 5 (not included):

b = "Hello, World!"

print(b[2:5])

Note: The first character has index 0.

Slice From the Start

By leaving out the start index, the range will start at the first character:

Example

Get the characters from the start to position 5 (not included):

print(b[:5])

Slice To the End

By leaving out the end index, the range will go to the end:

Example

Get the characters from position 2, and all the way to the end:

b = "Hello, World!"

print(b[2:])

Negative Indexing

Use negative indexes to start the slice from the end of the string:

Example

Get the characters:

From: "o" in "World!" (position -5)

To, but not included: "d" in "World!" (position -2):

b = "Hello, World!"

print(b[-5:-2])

String Concatenation

To concatenate, or combine, two strings you can use the + operator.

Example

To add a space between them, add a " ":

a = "Hello"

b = "World"

c=a+""+b
print(c)

String Format

As we learned in the Python Variables chapter, we cannot combine strings

and numbers like this:

Example

age = 36

txt = "My name is John, I am " + age

print(txt)

But we can combine strings and numbers by using f-strings or

the format() method!

F-Strings

F-String was introduced in Python 3.6, and is now the preferred way of

formatting strings.

To specify a string as an f-string, simply put an f in front of the string literal,

and add curly brackets {} as placeholders for variables and other

operations.

Example

Create an f-string:

age = 36

txt = f"My name is John, I am {age}"

print(txt)

Placeholders and Modifiers

A placeholder can contain variables, operations, functions, and modifiers to

format the value.

Example

Add a placeholder for the price variable:

txt = f"The price is {price} dollars"

print(txt)

A placeholder can include a modifier to format the value.

A modifier is included by adding a colon : followed by a legal formatting

type, like .2f which means fixed point number with 2 decimals:

Example

Display the price with 2 decimals:

price = 59

txt = f"The price is {price:.2f} dollars"

print(txt)

A placeholder can contain Python code, like math operations:

Example

Perform a math operation in the placeholder, and return the result:

txt = f"The price is {20 * 59} dollars"

print(txt)

String Methods

Python has a set of built-in methods that you can use on strings.

Method Description

capitalize() Converts the first character to upper case

casefold() Converts string into lower case

center(50) Returns a centered string

count() Returns the number of times a specified value occurs in a string

endswith() Returns true if the string ends with the specified value

expandtabs Sets the tab size of the string

()

find() Searches the string for a specified value and returns the position of

where it was found

format_ma Formats specified values in a string

p()

index() Searches the string for a specified value and returns the position of

where it was found

isalnum() Returns True if all characters in the string are alphanumeric

isalpha() Returns True if all characters in the string are in the alphabet

isdecimal() Returns True if all characters in the string are decimals

isdigit() Returns True if all characters in the string are digits

isidentifier( Returns True if the string is an identifier

islower() Returns True if all characters in the string are lower case

isnumeric() Returns True if all characters in the string are numeric

isprintable( Returns True if all characters in the string are printable

isspace() Returns True if all characters in the string are whitespaces

istitle() Returns True if the string follows the rules of a title

isupper() Returns True if all characters in the string are upper case

join() Joins the elements of an iterable to the end of the string

ljust() Returns a left justified version of the string

lstrip() Returns a left trim version of the string

replace() Returns a string where a specified value is replaced with a specified

value

Python keywords:

import keyword

print([Link])