Python Tutorial

Python Strings With Examples

Table of Contents

  • What are Strings in Python?
  • How to Access Characters or Elements From a String in Python?

What are Strings in Python?

In Python, strings are byte arrays that represent Unicode characters. Because of the lack of a character data type in Python, a single character is just a one-length string. To access the string's components, use square brackets.

How to Access Characters or Elements From a String in Python?

Using indexing, you can access specific characters. On the other hand, you can use slicing to access a group of characters. The index starts from zero. 

You'll get an IndexError if you try to access a character outside of the index range. As the index, an integer must be used. We can't use floating or other types since we'll get a TypeError.

Negative indexing is supported by Python sequences. Here, it represents the last item by -1, the second-last item by -2, and the list goes on. You can use the slicing operator (:) to access the list of things in a string.

Example: 

#Accessing string characters in Python

str = 'wscube'

print('str = ', str)

#first character

print('str[0] = ', str[0])

#last character

print('str[-1] = ', str[-1])

#slicing 2nd to 5th character

print('str[1:5] = ', str[1:5])

Output:

str =  wscubetech
str[0] =  w
str[-1] =  h
str[1:5] =  scub
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