Python Strings with Example

In this post, you will learn about Python Strings, indexing in the string, concatenation of two strings, how to create a substring from a given string, multi-line String, Python Escape Characters, etc with a detailed explanation and example.

So let’s start from a very basic.

What is String in Python?

In general, the String is a sequence of characters but in python, you can say that anything (characters, numbers, symbols, etc) inside single or double quotes ( ‘ ___’ or “___” ) is considered a string.

Example: ‘Refer’ or “Noon”.

Create a String in Python

To create a String in python assign a variable with your string.

# Create a String 

my_string = 'allinpython'
# my_string ---> is name of the variable.

print(my_string)

# or

my_string2 = "refer"
print(my_string2)

Output:

allinpython
refer

What is Indexing in String?

Indexing is the place value of each and every character of the string and it starts from 0 to len(string) - 1 .

Example:

With the help of index value, you can access every characters of the string.

my_string = 'REFER'
print(my_string[0])
print(my_string[1])
print(my_string[2])
print(my_string[3])
print(my_string[4])

Output:

R
E
F
E
R

String is immutable

A string is immutable because once a string is created you can not change or update it.

For Example:

my_string = 'refer'
my_string[0] = 'R'
print(my_string)

Output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\Users\saurabh\Desktop\allinpython\String.py", line 2, in <module>
    my_string[0] = 'R'
TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment

In the above example, we get an error while updating r --> R.

Concatenation of two strings

You can join (or concatenate) two strings with the help of ‘+’ operator.

name = 'roman'
surname = 'reigns'

full_name = name + surname
print(full_name)

Output:

romanreigns

Create a substring from a given String

With the help of Slicing you will create a substring from the given String.

my_string = 'james is so kind'
print('my string is : ', my_string)

# slicing will take starting and ending index values
# for Example: my_string[start : end]

my_sub_string = my_string[0:5]
print('my substring is : ',my_sub_string)

Output:

my string is :  james is so kind
my substring is :  james

Multi-line String in Python

For multi-line string you can use single quotes three times or double quotes three times (”’___ ”’ OR “””___”””) in python.

For Example:

my_string = '''this is demo of 
multi-line string'''

print(my_string)

# OR
my_string2 = """\nthis is double quotes
example"""

print(my_string2)

Output:

this is demo of
multi-line string

this is double quotes
example

Python Escape Characters

There are many escape characters in python few are listed below:

• \n –> is use for new line
• \t –> is use for tab
• \\ –> is use for single backslash
• \b –>Backspace
• \” –> is use for double quote

print("hello\nworld")

print("hello\tworld")

print('hello\\world')

Output:

hello
world
hello   world
hello\world

Check length of the String

You can use the len() function to check the length of the string in python.

# length
# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12          
# t h i s   i s   d  e  m  o

my_string3 = 'this is demo'
print(len(my_string3))

Output:

12

Check substring is present or not

my_string5 = 'this is demo example for understanding'

# check if 'demo' present in my_string5 or not

if 'demo' in my_string5:
    print('present')
else:
    print('not present')

Output:

present

Check String is empty or not

name = ''
if name:
    print('it is not empty')
else:
    print('Empty')

Output:

Empty

Related Post:
String methods
Indexing, slicing & step arguments