String

Till now, we have discussed numbers as the standard data-types in Python. In this
section of the tutorial, we will discuss the most popular data type in Python, i.e.,
string.

Python string is the collection of the characters surrounded by single quotes, double
quotes, or triple quotes. The computer does not understand the characters;
internally, it stores manipulated character as the combination of the 0's and 1's.

Each character is encoded in the ASCII or Unicode character. So we can say that
Python strings are also called the collection of Unicode characters.

In Python, strings can be created by enclosing the character or the sequence of

characters in the quotes. Python allows us to use single quotes, double quotes, or
triple quotes to create the string.

Consider the following example in Python to create a string.

Syntax:

str = "Hi Python !"    

Here, if we check the type of the variable str using a Python script

print(type(str)), then it will print a string (str).    

In Python, strings are treated as the sequence of characters, which means that
Python doesn't support the character data-type; instead, a single character written
as 'p' is treated as the string of length 1.

Creating String in Python

We can create a string by enclosing the characters in single-quotes or double-
quotes. Python also provides triple-quotes to represent the string, but it is generally
used for multiline string or docstrings.

#Using single quotes  
str1 = 'Hello Python'  
print(str1)  
#Using double quotes  
str2 = "Hello Python"  
print(str2)  
  
#Using triple quotes  
str3 = '''''Triple quotes are generally used for  
    represent the multiline or 
    docstring'''   
print(str3)  

Output:

Hello Python
Hello Python
Triple quotes are generally used for
represent the multiline or
docstring

Strings indexing and splitting

Like other languages, the indexing of the Python strings starts from 0. For example,
The string "HELLO" is indexed as given in the below figure.

Consider the following example:

str = "HELLO"  
print(str[0])  
print(str[1])  
print(str[2])  
print(str[3])  
print(str[4])  
# It returns the IndexError because 6th index doesn't exist  
print(str[6])  

Output:

H
E
L
L
O
IndexError: string index out of range

As shown in Python, the slice operator [] is used to access the individual characters
of the string. However, we can use the : (colon) operator in Python to access the
substring from the given string. Consider the following example.
Here, we must notice that the upper range given in the slice operator is always
exclusive i.e., if str = 'HELLO' is given, then str[1:3] will always include str[1] = 'E',
str[2] = 'L' and nothing else.

Consider the following example:

# Given String  
str = "JAVATPOINT"  
# Start Oth index to end  
print(str[0:])  
# Starts 1th index to 4th index  
print(str[1:5])  
# Starts 2nd index to 3rd index  
print(str[2:4])  
# Starts 0th to 2nd index  
print(str[:3])  
#Starts 4th to 6th index  
print(str[4:7])  

Output:

JAVATPOINT
AVAT
VA
JAV
TPO

We can do the negative slicing in the string; it starts from the rightmost character,
which is indicated as -1. The second rightmost index indicates -2, and so on.
Consider the following image.

Consider the following example

str = 'JAVATPOINT'  
print(str[-1])  
print(str[-3])  
print(str[-2:])  
print(str[-4:-1])  
print(str[-7:-2])  
# Reversing the given string  
print(str[::-1])  
print(str[-12])  

Output:

T
I
NT
OIN
ATPOI
TNIOPTAVAJ
IndexError: string index out of range

Reassigning Strings
Updating the content of the strings is as easy as assigning it to a new string. The
string object doesn't support item assignment i.e., A string can only be replaced
with new string since its content cannot be partially replaced. Strings are immutable
in Python.

Consider the following example.

Example 1

str = "HELLO"    
str[0] = "h"    
print(str)    

Output:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "12.py", line 2, in <module>
str[0] = "h";
TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment

However, in example 1, the string str can be assigned completely to a new content

as specified in the following example.

Example 2

str = "HELLO"    
print(str)    
str = "hello"    
print(str)    
Output:

HELLO
hello

Deleting the String

As we know that strings are immutable. We cannot delete or remove the characters
from the string.  But we can delete the entire string using the del keyword.

str = "JAVATPOINT"  
del str[1]  

Output:

TypeError: 'str' object doesn't support item deletion

Now we are deleting entire string.

str1 = "JAVATPOINT"  
del str1  
print(str1)  

Output:

NameError: name 'str1' is not defined

String Operators

Operator Description

+ It is known as concatenation operator used to join the strings given

either side of the operator.

* It is known as repetition operator. It concatenates the multiple

copies of the same string.

[] It is known as slice operator. It is used to access the sub-strings of a

particular string.

[:] It is known as range slice operator. It is used to access the

 characters from the specified range.

in It is known as membership operator. It returns if a particular sub-

string is present in the specified string.

not in It is also a membership operator and does the exact reverse of in. It
returns true if a particular substring is not present in the specified
string.

r/R It is used to specify the raw string. Raw strings are used in the cases
where we need to print the actual meaning of escape characters
such as "C://python". To define any string as a raw string, the
character r or R is followed by the string.

% It is used to perform string formatting. It makes use of the format

specifiers used in C programming like %d or %f to map their values
in python. We will discuss how formatting is done in python.

Example
Consider the following example to understand the real use of Python operators.

str = "Hello"     
str1 = " world"    
print(str*3) # prints HelloHelloHello    
print(str+str1)# prints Hello world     
print(str[4]) # prints o                
print(str[2:4]); # prints ll                    
print('w' in str) # prints false as w is not present in str    
print('wo' not in str1) # prints false as wo is present in str1.     
print(r'C://python37') # prints C://python37 as it is written    
print("The string str : %s"%(str)) # prints The string str : Hello     

Output:

HelloHelloHello
Hello world
o
 ll
False
False
C://python37
The string str : Hello

String functions
Python provides various in-built functions that are used for string handling. Many String
fun

Method Description

capitalize() It capitalizes the first character of the String.

This function is deprecated in python3

casefold() It returns a version of s suitable for case-

less comparisons.

center(width ,fillchar) It returns a space padded string with the

original string centred with equal number of
left and right spaces.

count(string,begin,end) It counts the number of occurrences of a

substring in a String between begin and end
index.

decode(encoding = 'UTF8', errors = Decodes the string using codec registered

'strict') for encoding.

encode() Encode S using the codec registered for

encoding. Default encoding is 'utf-8'.

endswith(suffix ,begin=0,end=len(s It returns a Boolean value if the string

tring)) terminates with given suffix between begin
 and end.

expandtabs(tabsize = 8) It defines tabs in string to multiple spaces.

The default space value is 8.

find(substring ,beginIndex, It returns the index value of the string where

endIndex) substring is found between begin index and
end index.

format(value) It returns a formatted version of S, using the

passed value.

index(subsring, beginIndex, It throws an exception if string is not found.

endIndex) It works same as find() method.

isalnum() It returns true if the characters in the string

are alphanumeric i.e., alphabets or numbers
and there is at least 1 character. Otherwise,
it returns false.

isalpha() It returns true if all the characters are

alphabets and there is at least one
character, otherwise False.

isdecimal() It returns true if all the characters of the

string are decimals.

isdigit() It returns true if all the characters are digits

and there is at least one character,
otherwise False.
isidentifier() It returns true if the string is the valid
identifier.

islower() It returns true if the characters of a string

are in lower case, otherwise false.

isnumeric() It returns true if the string contains only

numeric characters.

isprintable() It returns true if all the characters of s are

printable or s is empty, false otherwise.

isupper() It returns false if characters of a string are in

Upper case, otherwise False.

isspace() It returns true if the characters of a string

are white-space, otherwise false.

istitle() It returns true if the string is titled properly

and false otherwise. A title string is the one
in which the first character is upper-case
whereas the other characters are lower-
case.

isupper() It returns true if all the characters of the

string(if exists) is true otherwise it returns
false.

join(seq) It merges the strings representation of the

given sequence.
len(string) It returns the length of a string.

ljust(width[,fillchar]) It returns the space padded strings with the

original string left justified to the given
width.

lower() It converts all the characters of a string to

Lower case.

lstrip() It removes all leading whitespaces of a

string and can also be used to remove
particular character from leading.

partition() It searches for the separator sep in S, and

returns the part before it, the separator
itself, and the part after it. If the separator
is not found, return S and two empty
strings.

maketrans() It returns a translation table to be used in

translate function.

replace(old,new[,count]) It replaces the old sequence of characters

with the new sequence. The max characters
are replaced if max is given.

rfind(str,beg=0,end=len(str)) It is similar to find but it traverses the string

in backward direction.

rindex(str,beg=0,end=len(str)) It is same as index but it traverses the string

in backward direction.
rjust(width,[,fillchar]) Returns a space padded string having
original string right justified to the number
of characters specified.

rstrip() It removes all trailing whitespace of a string

and can also be used to remove particular
character from trailing.

rsplit(sep=None, maxsplit = -1) It is same as split() but it processes the

string from the backward direction. It
returns the list of words in the string. If
Separator is not specified then the string
splits according to the white-space.

split(str,num=string.count(str)) Splits the string according to the delimiter

str. The string splits according to the space if
the delimiter is not provided. It returns the
list of substring concatenated with the
delimiter.

splitlines(num=string.count('\n')) It returns the list of strings at each line with

newline removed.

startswith(str,beg=0,end=len(str)) It returns a Boolean value if the string starts

with given str between begin and end.

strip([chars]) It is used to perform lstrip() and rstrip() on

the string.

swapcase() It inverts case of all characters in a string.

title() It is used to convert the string into the title-

 case i.e., The string meEruT will be
converted to Meerut.

translate(table,deletechars = '') It translates the string according to the

translation table passed in the function .

upper() It converts all the characters of a string to

Upper Case.

zfill(width) Returns original string leftpadded with zeros

to a total of width characters; intended for
numbers, zfill() retains any sign given (less
one zero).