Python String

By
Dr Bijoy Kumar Mandal
 Python Strings
String Literals
• String literals 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("Hello")
print('Hello')
Assign String to a Variable
• Assigning a string to a variable is done with the variable name followed by an equal
sign and the string:
• Example
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,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."""
print(a)
Or three single quotes:
• Example
a = '''Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.'''
print(a)
• Note: in the result, the line breaks are inserted at the same position as in the code.
 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])
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])

Negative Indexing
• Use negative indexes to start the slice from the end of the string:
• Example
Get the characters from position 5 to position 1 (not included), starting the count from the end of
the string:
b = "Hello, World!”
print(b[-5:-2])
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 Methods
• Python has a set of built-in methods that you can use on strings.
• Example
The strip() method removes any whitespace from the beginning or the end:
a = " Hello, World! "
print(a.strip()) # returns "Hello, World!"
• Example
The lower() method returns the string in lower case:
a = "Hello, World!"
print(a.lower())
• Example
The upper() method returns the string in upper case:
a = "Hello, World!“
print(a.upper())
• Example
The replace() method replaces a string with another string:
a = "Hello, World!"
print(a.replace("H", "J"))
• Example
The split() method splits the string into substrings if it finds instances of the separator:
a = "Hello, World!"
print(a.split(",")) # returns ['Hello', ' World!‘]
 Check String
• To check if a certain phrase or character is present in a string, we can use the
keywords in or not in.
• Example
• Check if the phrase "ain" is present in the following text:
txt = "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"
x = "ain" in txt
print(x)

• Example
• Check if the phrase "ain" is NOT present in the following text:
txt = "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"
x = "ain" not in txt
print(x)
 String Concatenation
• To concatenate, or combine, two strings you can use the + operator.
• Example
• Merge variable a with variable b into variable c:
a = "Hello"
b = "World"
c=a+b
print(c)

• 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 the format() method!

• The format() method takes the passed arguments, formats them, and places them in the string where
the placeholders {} are:

• Example
• Use the format() method to insert numbers into strings:

age = 36
txt = "My name is John, and I am {}"
print(txt.format(age))
• The format() method takes unlimited number of arguments, and are placed into the
respective placeholders:

• Example
quantity = 3
itemno = 567
price = 49.95
myorder = "I want {} pieces of item {} for {} dollars."
print(myorder.format(quantity, itemno, price))
• You can use index numbers {0} to be sure the arguments are placed in the correct
placeholders:

• Example
quantity = 3
itemno = 567
price = 49.95
myorder = "I want to pay {2} dollars for {0} pieces of item {1}."
print(myorder.format(quantity, itemno, price)
 Escape Character
• To insert characters that are illegal in a string, use an escape character.
• An escape character is a backslash \ followed by the character you want to
insert.
• An example of an illegal character is a double quote inside a string that is
surrounded by double quotes:
• Example
You will get an error if you use double quotes inside a string that is surrounded by double
quotes:
txt = "We are the so-called "Vikings" from the north."
• To fix this problem, use the escape character \":

• Example
The escape character allows you to use double quotes when you normally
would not be allowed:

txt = "We are the so-called \"Vikings\" from the north.“

• Other escape characters used in Python:
Code Result Code & Output

\' Single Quote Try it

\\ Backslash Try it »

\n New Line

\r Carriage Return

\t Tab

\b Backspace T

\f Form Feed

\ooo Octal value Try it »

\xhh Hex value

 String Methods
• Python has a set of built-in methods that you can use on strings.
• Note: All string methods returns new values. They do not change the original string.

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

• ljust() Returns a left justified version of the string
• lower() Converts a string into lower case
• lstrip() Returns a left trim version of the string
• maketrans() Returns a translation table to be used in translations
• partition() Returns a tuple where the string is parted into three parts
• replace() Returns a string where a specified value is replaced with a specified value
• rfind() Searches the string for a specified value and returns the last position of where it was found
• rindex()Searches the string for a specified value and returns the last position of where it was found
• rjust() Returns a right justified version of the string
• rpartition() Returns a tuple where the string is parted into three parts
• rsplit() Splits the string at the specified separator, and returns a list
• rstrip() Returns a right trim version of the string
• split() Splits the string at the specified separator, and returns a list
• splitlines() Splits the string at line breaks and returns a list
• startswith() Returns true if the string starts with the specified value
• strip() Returns a trimmed version of the string
• swapcase() Swaps cases, lower case becomes upper case and vice versa
• title() Converts the first character of each word to upper case
• translate() Returns a translated string
• upper() Converts a string into upper case
• zfill() Fills the string with a specified number of 0 values at the beginning
Basic String Program(A total of 5 program to be done
from each slide)

1. Check whether the string is Symmetrical or Palindrome

2. Find length of String
3. Reverse words in a given String
4. Remove i’th character from string
5. Avoid Spaces in string length
6. Print even length words in a string
7. Uppercase Half String
8. Capitalize the first and last character of each word in a string
9. Check if a string has at least one letter and one number
10. Accept the strings which contains all vowels
11. Count the Number of matching characters in a pair of string
12. Count number of vowels using sets in given string
Basic String Program(A total of 5 program to be done from each slide)

1. Remove all duplicates from a given string

2. Least Frequent Character in String
3. Maximum frequency character in String
4. Odd Frequency Characters
5. Specific Characters Frequency in String List
6. Frequency of numbers in String
7. Program to check if a string contains any special character
8. Convert String to Set
9. Convert Set to String
Basic String Program(A total of 5
program to be done from each slide)
1. Permutation of a given string using inbuilt function
2. Print the middle character of a String
3. Convert integer to string
4. Convert String to Int
5. To split string into list of Characters
6. To convert a List to String
7. To convert String to a list
8. How to remove Letters from a String
9. Convert a list of Characters into String
10. Convert Object to String in Python