Python String Tutorial – Python String Functions and Operations

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In this Python String tutorial, you will learn what is Python string with examples.

Moreover, you will learn how to declare and slice a string in python and also look at the Python String functions and Python String operations.

At last, you will learn escape sequences in Python. 

So, let’s start the Python String Tutorial.

Python Strings

Python Strings Tutorial – Functions and Operations

What is Python String?

A Python string is a sequence of characters. There is a built-in class ‘str’ for handling Python string.

You can prove this with the type() function.

>>> type('Dogs are love')

Output

<class ‘str’>

Python doesn’t have the char data-type like C++ or Java does.

How to Declare Python String?

You can declare a Python string using either single quotes or double quotes.

>>> a='Dogs are love'
>>> print(a)

Output

Dogs are love
>>> a="Dogs are love"
>>> print(a)

Output

Dogs are love

However, you cannot use a single quote to begin a string and a double quote to end it, and vice-versa.

>>> a='Dogs are love"

Output

SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

How to Use Quotes inside Python String?

Since we delimit strings using quotes, there are some things you need to take care of when using them inside a string.

>>> a="Dogs are "love""

Output

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

If you need to use double quotes inside a Python string, delimit the string with single quotes.

>>> a='Dogs are "love"'
>>> print(a)

Output

Dogs are “love”

And if you need to use single quotes inside a string, delimit it with double-quotes.

>>> a="Dogs are 'love'"
>>> print(a)

Output

Dogs are ‘love’

You can use as many quotes as you want, then.

>>> a="'Dogs' 'are' 'love'"
>> print(a)

Output

‘Dogs’ ‘are’ ‘love’

Spanning a String Across Lines

When you want to span a Python string across multiple lines, you can use triple quotes.

[php]>>> a="""Hello
  Welcome"""
>>> print(a)[/php]

Output

Hello
Welcome

It preserves newlines too, unlike using a backward slash for the same.

>>> a="Hello\
        Welcome"
>>> print(a)

Output

Hello      Welcome

How to Access the Python String?

A string is immutable; it can’t be changed.

>>> a="Dogs"
>>> a[0]="H"

Output

Traceback (most recent call last):File “<pyshell#22>”, line 1, in <module>

a[0]=”H”

TypeError: ‘str’ object does not support item assignment

But you can access a string.

>>> a="Dogs are love"
>>> a

Output

‘Dogs are love’
>>> print(a)

Output

Dogs are love

1. Displaying a single character

To display a single character from a string, put its index in square brackets. Indexing begins at 0.

>>> a[1]

Output

‘o’

2. Slicing a string

Sometimes, you may want to display only a part of a string. For this, use the slicing operator [].

>>> a[3:8]

Output

‘s are’

Here, it printed characters 3 to 7, with the indexing beginning at 0.

>>> a[:8]

Output

‘Dogs are’

This prints characters from the beginning to character 7.

>>> a[8:]

Output

‘ love’

This prints characters from character 8 to the end of the string.

>>> a[:]

Output

‘Dogs are love’

This prints the whole string.

>>> a[:-2]

Output

‘Dogs are lo’

This prints characters from the beginning to two characters less than the end of the string.

>>> a[-2:]

Output

‘ve’

This prints characters from two characters from the end to the end of the string.

>>> a[-3:-2]

Output

‘o’

This prints characters from three characters from the string’s end to two characters from it.

The following codes return empty strings.

>>> a[-2:-2]

Output

>>> a[2:2]

Output

Python String Concatenation

Concatenation is the operation of joining stuff together. Python Strings can join using the concatenation operator +.

>>> a='Do you see this, '
>>> b='$$?'
>>> a+b

Output

‘Do you see this, $$?’

Let’s take another example.

>>> a='10'
>>> print(2*a)

Output

1010

Multiplying ‘a’ by 2 returned 1010, and not 20, because ‘10’ is a string, not a number. You cannot concatenate a string to a number.

>>> '10'+10

Output

Traceback (most recent call last):File “<pyshell#49>”, line 1, in <module>

’10’+10

TypeError: must be str, not int

Python String Formatters

Sometimes, you may want to print variables along with a string. You can either use commas, or use string formatters for the same.

>>> city='Ahmedabad'
>>> print("Age",21,"City",city)

Output

Age 21 City Ahmedabad

1. f-strings

The letter ‘f’ precedes the string, and the variables are mentioned in curly braces in their places.

>>> name='Ayushi'
>>> print(f"It isn't {name}'s birthday")

Output

It isn’t Ayushi’s birthday

Notice that because we wanted to use two single quotes in the string, we delimited the entire string with double quotes instead.

2. format() method

You can use the format() method to do the same. It succeeds the string and has the variables as arguments separated by commas.
In the string, use curly braces to posit the variables. Inside the curly braces, you can either put 0,1,.. or the variables.

When doing the latter, you must assign values to them in the format method.

>>> print("I love {0}".format(a))

Output

I love dogs
>>> print("I love {a}".format(a='cats'))

Output

I love cats

The variables don’t have to defined before the print statement.

>>> print("I love {b}".format(b='ferrets'))

Output

I love ferrets

3. % operator

The % operator goes where the variables go in a string. %s is for string

What follows the string is the operator and variables in parentheses/in a tuple.

>>> b='ferrets'
>>> print("I love %s and %s" %(a,b))

Output

I love dogs and cats

Other options include:

%d – for integers

%f – for floating-point numbers

Escape Sequences in Python

In a Python string, you may want to put a tab, a linefeed, or other such things. Escape sequences allow us to do this.

An escape sequence is a backslash followed by a character, depending on what you want to do.

Python supports the following sequences.

  • \n – linefeed
  • \t – tab
>>> print("hell\to")

Output

hell         o
  • \\ – backslash

Since a backslash may be a part of an escape sequence, so, a backslash must be escaped by a backslash too.

  • \’ – A single quote can be escaped by a backslash. This lets you use single quotes freely in a string.
  • \” – Like the single quote, the double quote can be escaped too.

Any Doubt yet in Python String and Python String Operations and Functions? Please Comment.

Python String Functions

Python provides us with a number of functions that we can apply on strings or to create strings.

1. len()

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

>>> a='book'
>>> len(a)

Output

4

You can also use it to find how long a slice of the string is.

>>> len(a[2:])

Output

2

2. str()

This function converts any data type into a string.

>>> str(2+3j)

Output

‘(2+3j)’
>>> str(['red','green','blue'])

Output

“[‘red’, ‘green’, ‘blue’]”

3. lower() and upper()

These methods return the string in lowercase and uppercase, respectively.

>>> a='Book'
>>> a.lower()

Output

‘book’
>>> a.upper()

Output

‘BOOK’

4. strip()

It removes whitespaces from the beginning and end of the string.

>>> a='  Book '
>>> a.strip()

Output

‘Book’

5. isdigit()

Returns True if all characters in a string are digits.

>>> a='777'
>> a.isdigit()

Output

True
>>> a='77a'
>>> a.isdigit()

Output

False

6. isalpha()

Returns True if all characters in a string are characters from an alphabet.

>>> a='abc'
>>> a.isalpha()

Output

True
>>> a='ab7'
>>> a.isalpha()

Output

False

7. isspace()

Returns True if all characters in a string are spaces.

>>> a='   '
>>> a.isspace()

Output

True
>>> a=' \'  '
>>> a.isspace()

Output

False

8. startswith()

It takes a string as an argument, and returns True if the string it is applied on begins with the string in the argument.

>>> a.startswith('un')

Output

True

9. endswith()

It takes a string as an argument, and returns True if the string it is applied on ends with the string in the argument.

>>> a='therefore'
>>> a.endswith('fore')

Output

True

10. find()

It takes an argument and searches for it in the string on which it is applied.

It then returns the index of the substring.

>>> 'homeowner'.find('meow')

Output

2

If the string doesn’t exist in the main string, then the index it returns is 1.

>>> 'homeowner'.find('wow')

Output

-1

11. replace()

It takes two arguments. The first is the substring to be replaced. The second is the substring to replace with.

>>> 'banana'.replace('na','ha')

Output

‘bahaha’

12. split()

It takes one argument. The string is then split around every occurrence of the argument in the string.

>>> 'No. Okay. Why?'.split('.')

Output

[‘No’, ‘ Okay’, ‘ Why?’]

13. join()

It takes a list as an argument and joins the elements in the list using the string it is applied on.

>>> "*".join(['red','green','blue'])

Output

‘red*green*blue’

Python String Operations

Python String Operations

Python String Operations

1. Comparison Operation in Python

Python Strings can compare using relational operators.

>>> 'hey'<'hi'

Output

True

‘hey’ is lesser than ‘hi lexicographically (because i comes after e in the dictionary)

>>> a='check'
>>> a=='check'

Output

True
>>> 'yes'!='no'

Output

True

2. Arithmetic Operation in Python

Some arithmetic operations can be applied on strings.

>>> 'ba'+'na'*2

Output

‘banana’

3. Membership Operation in Python

The membership operators of Python can be used to check if string is a substring to another.

>>> 'na' in 'banana'

Output

True
>>> 'less' not in 'helpless'

Output

False

4. Identity Operation in Python

Python’s identity operators ‘is’ and ‘is not’ can be used on strings.

>>> 'Hey' is 'Hi'

Output

False
>>> 'Yo' is not 'yo'

Output

True

5. Logical Operation in Python

Python’s and, or, and not operators can be applied too. An empty string has a Boolean value of False.

a. and- If the value on the left is True it returns the value on the right.

Otherwise, the value on the left is False, it returns False.

>>> '' and '1'

Output

>>> '1' and ''

Output

b. or- If the value on the left is True, it returns True. Otherwise, the value on the right is returned.
c. not- As we said earlier, an empty string has a Boolean value of False.

>>> not('1')

Output

False
>>> not('')

Output

True

This was all about the tutorial on Python strings. Hope you like the Python strings tutorial.

Conclusion

In this Python String tutorial, you learned about python string with string functions and Operators, and how to declare and access them.

Then you learned about python string concatenation and formatters in python.

Finally, You learned about Python string functions and operations that you can perform on strings.

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10 Responses

  1. rakshith says:

    In strings , you can’t print s[-1:-4]. it doesn’t support negative or reverse slicing

    • krishna says:

      step direction required where its -ve index or +ve index
      case 1: its -ve index u can get result from -ve index – to -3
      case2: its +ve index u can get empty string result.

    • DataFlair Team says:

      Hello Rakshith,
      Thanks for connecting DataFlair.
      Let the string be s=’helloworld’

      s[-1:-4] gives us an empty string because it cannot traverse from index -1 to -4 LEFT TO RIGHT.
      But it can traverse that right to left; for that, we give it a step value of -1.
      So, s[-1:-4:-1] gives us ‘dlr’.
      And if you want this value traversed left to right, you can try s[-3:] instead. It will give you ‘rld’.
      Hope, it helps you!

  2. Narendra Pratap Singh says:

    Please Give explanation and example of Extended Slices ex : [1:10:2], L[:-1:1], L[::-1]

    • DataFlair Team says:

      Hello Narendra,
      L[:4] looks like a regular slice. An extended slice also takes a value for step/stride.
      Take an example.
      This is list L=[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10].
      L[1:10:2] is the slice with these values: [2, 4, 6, 8, 10].
      It starts with the first index and takes a step of 2. So, it takes values from the indices 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9.

      L[:-1:1] traverses from the beginning to one from the end, giving us values 1 to 9.

      L[::-1] traverses the entire list from right to left because it has a step value of -1.
      Hope, it helps. Keep Visiting DataFlair

  3. Semih says:

    Hello Narendra Pratap Singh,
    [1:10:2] works like that [first number, last number, rise(difference]
    for example a=”abcdefghij”
    [1:10:2] prints –> ‘bdfhj’
    [::-1] prints–> from last to first element “jih….a”
    [:-1:1] this one is hard to understand lol
    id like an explanation for this too!

    • DataFlair says:

      The instruction a[:-1:1] prints ‘abcdefghi’. This is because, here the starting index is not mentioned so 0 and ending instruction is -1, which means the last index and increment is 1. So, starting from the first character, every character (since increment is 1) is given as output till the last character (the last one excluded). Hoping that you understood the given explanation.

  4. Semih says:

    Hello, there is a problem on this site. For example, if I have a question I ask this on here, and even if its answered by you, I dont have any notification on my mail adress.
    So i have to come here to see if its answered.
    But i’d like to get notification when its answered.
    How to solve this problem?
    Thank you

  5. Manoj Kumar says:

    #Data Flair for making the amazing site that very helpful for Developer .

    • DataFlair Team says:

      Thanks manoj for your appreciation. Hope DataFlair tutorials will help you in becoming Good developer.

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