Python 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:

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 = "HELLOPYTHON"

# 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

HELLOPYTHON

ELLO

LL

HEL

OPY

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 = 'HELLOPYTHON'

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

ON

THO
OPYTH

NOHTYPOLLEH

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 = "PYTHON"

del str[1]

Output:

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

Now we are deleting entire string.

str1 = "PYTHON"

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("The string str : %s"%(str)) # prints The string str : Hello

Output:

HelloHelloHello

Hello world

ll

False

False

The string str : Hello

Python String Formatting

Escape Sequence
Let's suppose we need to write the text as - They said, "Hello what's going on?"- the given
statement can be written in single quotes or double quotes but it will raise
the SyntaxError as it contains both single and double-quotes.

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

str = "They said, "Hello what's going on?""

print(str)

Output:

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

We can use the triple quotes to accomplish this problem but Python provides the escape
sequence.

The backslash(/) symbol denotes the escape sequence. The backslash can be followed by a
special character and it interpreted differently. The single quotes inside the string must be
escaped. We can apply the same as in the double quotes.
 Example -
# using triple quotes

print('''They said, "What's there?"''')

# escaping single quotes

print('They said, "What\'s going on?"')

# escaping double quotes

print("They said, \"What's going on?\"")

Output:

They said, "What's there?"

They said, "What's going on?"

They said, "What's going on?"

The list of an escape sequence is given below:

Sr. Escape Sequence Description Example

1. \newline It ignores the new line. print("Python1 \

Python2 \
Python3")
Output:
Python1 Python2 Python3

2. \\ Backslash print("\\")
Output:
\

3. \' Single Quotes print('\'')

Output:
'

4. \\'' Double Quotes print("\"")

 Output:
"

5. \a ASCII Bell print("\a")

6. \b ASCII Backspace(BS) print("Hello \b World")

Output:
Hello World

7. \f ASCII Formfeed print("Hello \f World!")

Hello World!

8. \n ASCII Linefeed print("Hello \n World!")

Output:
Hello
World!

9. \r ASCII Carriege Return(CR) print("Hello \r World!")

Output:
World!

10. \t ASCII Horizontal Tab print("Hello \t World!")

Output:
Hello World!

11. \v ASCII Vertical Tab print("Hello \v World!")

Output:
Hello
World!

12. \ooo Character with octal value print("\110\145\154\154\157")

Output:
Hello

13 \xHH Character with hex value. print("\x48\x65\x6c\x6c\x6f")

Output:
Hello

Here is the simple example of escape sequence.

print("C:\\Users\\DEVANSH SHARMA\\Python32\\Lib")

print("This is the \n multiline quotes")

print("This is \x48\x45\x58 representation")

Output:

C:\Users\DEVANSH SHARMA\Python32\Lib

This is the

multiline quotes

This is HEX representation

We can ignore the escape sequence from the given string by using the raw string. We can do this by
writing r or R in front of the string. Consider the following example.

print(r"C:\\Users\\DEVANSH SHARMA\\Python32")

Output:

C:\\Users\\DEVANSH SHARMA\\Python32

The format() method

The format() method is the most flexible and useful method in formatting strings. The
curly braces {} are used as the placeholder in the string and replaced by
the format() method argument. Let's have a look at the given an example:

# Using Curly braces

print("{} and {} both are the best friend".format("Devansh","Abhishek"))

#Positional Argument

print("{1} and {0} best players ".format("Virat","Rohit"))

#Keyword Argument

print("{a},{b},{c}".format(a = "James", b = "Peter", c = "Ricky"))

Output:
Devansh and Abhishek both are the best friend

Rohit and Virat best players

James,Peter,Ricky

Python String Formatting Using % Operator

Python allows us to use the format specifiers used in C's printf statement. The format
specifiers in Python are treated in the same way as they are treated in C. However, Python
provides an additional operator %, which is used as an interface between the format
specifiers and their values. In other words, we can say that it binds the format specifiers to
the values.

Consider the following example.

Integer = 10;

Float = 1.290

String = "Devansh"

print("Hi I am Integer ... My value is %d\nHi I am float ... My value is %f\nHi I am string ... My value is
%s"%(Integer,Float,String))

Output:

Hi I am Integer ... My value is 10

Hi I am float ... My value is 1.290000

Hi I am string ... My value is Devansh

N
H
ON
THO
OPYTH
NOHTYPOLLEH