PYTHON FOR

Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

String Concatenation
>>> a = 'Hello'
>>> b = a + 'There'
When the + operator is >>> print(b)
applied to strings, it means HelloThere
“concatenation” >>> c = a + ' ' + 'There'
>>> print(c)
Hello There
>>>
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Using in as a Logical Operator

• The in keyword can also be >>> fruit = 'banana'
>>> 'n' in fruit
used to check to see if one
True
string is “in” another string >>> 'm' in fruit
False
• The in expression is a >>> 'nan' in fruit
logical expression that True
returns True or False and >>> if 'a' in fruit :
... print('Found it!')
can be used in an if
...
statement Found it!
>>>
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

String Comparison
if word == 'banana':
print('All right, bananas.')

if word < 'banana':

print('Your word,' + word + ', comes before banana.')
elif word > 'banana':
print('Your word,' + word + ', comes after banana.')
else:
print('All right, bananas.')
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

• Python has a number of string

String Library
functions which are in the
string library (1 of 4)
>>> greet = 'Hello Bob'
• These functions are already >>> zap = greet.lower()
built into every string - we >>> print(zap)
invoke them by appending the hello bob
function to the string variable >>> print(greet)
Hello Bob
• These functions do not modify >>> print('Hi There'.lower())
the original string, instead they hi there
return a new string that has >>>
been altered
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

>>> stuff = 'Hello world'

>>> type(stuff)
<class 'str'>
>>> dir(stuff)
['capitalize', 'casefold', 'center', 'count', 'encode',
'endswith', 'expandtabs', 'find', 'format', 'format_map',
'index', 'isalnum', 'isalpha', 'isdecimal', 'isdigit',
'isidentifier', 'islower', 'isnumeric', 'isprintable', 'isspace',
'istitle', 'isupper', 'join', 'ljust', 'lower', 'lstrip',
'maketrans', 'partition', 'replace', 'rfind', 'rindex', 'rjust',
'rpartition', 'rsplit', 'rstrip', 'split', 'splitlines',
'startswith', 'strip', 'swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper',
'zfill']

https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#string-methods
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

String Library (4 of 4)
str.capitalize() str.replace(old, new[, count])
str.center(width[, fillchar]) str.lower()
str.endswith(suffix[, start[, end]]) str.rstrip([chars])
str.find(sub[, start[, end]]) str.strip([chars])
str.lstrip([chars]) str.upper()
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Searching a String
b a n a n a
• We use the find() function to search
for a substring within another string 0 1 2 3 4 5
>>> fruit = 'banana'
• find() finds the first occurrence of the >>> pos = fruit.find('na')
substring >>> print(pos)
2
• If the substring is not found, find() >>> aa = fruit.find('z')
returns -1 >>> print(aa)
-1
• Remember that string position starts
at zero
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Making Everything UPPER CASE

• You can make a copy of a >>> greet = 'Hello Bob'
string in lower case or upper >>> nnn = greet.upper()
case >>> print(nnn)
HELLO BOB
• Often when we are searching >>> www = greet.lower()
for a string using find() we first >>> print(www)
convert the string to lower case hello bob
so we can search a string >>>
regardless of case
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Search and Replace

• The replace() function >>> greet = 'Hello Bob'
>>> nstr = greet.replace('Bob','Jane')
is like a “search and >>> print(nstr)
replace” operation in a Hello Jane
word processor >>> nstr = greet.replace('o','X')
>>> print(nstr)
• It replaces all HellX BXb
>>>
occurrences of the
search string with the
replacement string
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Stripping Whitespace
• Sometimes we want to take >>> greet = ' Hello Bob
>>> greet.lstrip()
'
a string and remove
'Hello Bob '
whitespace at the beginning >>> greet.rstrip()
and/or end ' Hello Bob'
>>> greet.strip()
• lstrip() and rstrip() remove 'Hello Bob'
whitespace at the left or right >>>

• strip() removes both

beginning and ending
whitespace
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Prefixes
>>> line = 'Please have a nice day'
>>> line.startswith('Please')
True
>>> line.startswith('p')
False
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Parsing and Extracting

21 31
From stephen.marquard@uct.ac.za Sat Jan 5 09:14:16 2008

>>> data = 'From stephen.marquard@uct.ac.za Sat Jan 5 09:14:16 2008'

>>> atpos = data.find('@')
>>> print(atpos)
21
>>> sppos = data.find(' ',atpos)
>>> print(sppos)
31
>>> host = data[atpos+1 : sppos]
>>> print(host)
uct.ac.za
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Strings and Character Sets

Python 2.7.10 Python 3.5.1
>>> x = '이광춘' >>> x = '이광춘'
>>> type(x) >>> type(x)
<type 'str'> <class 'str'>
>>> x = u'이광춘' >>> x = u'이광춘'
>>> type(x) >>> type(x)
<type 'unicode'> <class 'str'>
>>> >>>

In Python 3, all strings are Unicode

 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Summary
• String type • String operations
• Read/Convert • String library
• Indexing strings [] • String Comparisons
• Slicing strings [2:4] • Searching in strings
• Looping through strings • Replacing text
with for and while • Stripping white space
• Concatenating strings with +
 PYTHON FOR
Strings – Part 1 EVERYBODY

Acknowledgements / Contributions
These slides are Copyright 2010- Charles R. Severance
(www.dr-chuck.com) of the University of Michigan School of
Information and open.umich.edu and made available under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Please maintain this
last slide in all copies of the document to comply with the
attribution requirements of the license. If you make a change,
feel free to add your name and organization to the list of
contributors on this page as you republish the materials.

Initial Development: Charles Severance, University of Michigan

School of Information

… Insert new Contributors and Translators here