[6] Python Strings

December 28, 2020

1 Python Strings
Concept: Python provides several ways to access the individual characters in a string. Strings
also have methods that allow you to perform operations on them.

2 Accessing the Individual Characters in a String

Some programming tasks require that you access the individual characters in a string. For example,
you are probably familiar with websites that require you to set up a password. For security reasons,
many sites require that your password have at least one uppercase letter, at least one lowercase
letter, and at least one digit. When you set up your password, a program examines each character
to ensure that the password meets these qualifications.

2.1 Iterating over a String with the for Loop

One of the easiest ways to access the individual characters in a string is to use the for loop.
Here is the general format:
for variable in string:
statement

statement

etc.

[3]: name = "GIFT University"

for ch in name:
print(ch,end=" ")

G I F T U n i v e r s i t y

2.2 Indexing
Another way that you can access the individual characters in a string is with an index. Each
character in a string has an index that specifies its position in the string. Indexing starts at 0, so
the index of the first character is 0, the index of the second character is 1, and so forth.
Fig:1 String Indexing

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 You can use an index to retrieve a copy of an individual character in a string.

[6]: my_string = 'Roses are red'

ch = my_string[6]
print(ch)

2.3 IndexError Exceptions

An IndexError exception will occur if you try to use an index that is out of range for a particular
string. For example, the string ‘Boston’ has 6 characters, so the valid indexes are 0 through 5.
(The valid negative indexes are −1 through −6.) The following is an example of code that causes
an IndexError exception.

[7]: city = 'Boston'

print(city[6])

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IndexError Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-7-03bedbfbecf9> in <module>
1 city = 'Boston'
----> 2 print(city[6])

IndexError: string index out of range

2.4 The len Function

The len function can also be used to get the length of a string. The following code demonstrates:

[8]: city = 'Boston'

size = len(city)
print(size)

3 String Concatenation
A common operation that performed on strings is concatenation, or appending one string to the
end of another string.The + operator produces a string that is the combination of the two strings
used as its operands.

[11]: first_name = "Ali "

last_name = "Babar"
full_name = first_name + last_name
print(full_name)

Ali Babar

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 4 Strings Are Immutable
In Python, strings are immutable, which means that once they are created, they cannot be changed.
Some operations, such as concatenation, give the impression that they modify strings, but in reality
they do not.
Because strings are immutable, you cannot use an expression in the form string[index] on the left
side of an assignment operator. For example, the following code will cause an error:

[12]: # Assign 'Bill' to friend.

friend = 'Bill'
# Can we change the first character to 'J'?
friend[0] = 'J' # No, this will cause an error!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-12-463a1d4baec1> in <module>
2 friend = 'Bill'
3 # Can we change the first character to 'J'?
----> 4 friend[0] = 'J' # No, this will cause an error!

TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment

The last statement in this code will raise an exception because it attempts to change the value of
the first character in the string ‘Bill’.

5 String Slicing
CONCEPT: You can use slicing expressions to select a range of characters from a string
A slice is a span of items that are taken from a sequence. When you take a slice from a string, you
get a span of characters from within the string. String slices are also called substrings.
To get a slice of a string, you write an expression in the following general format:
string[start : end]

[13]: full_name = 'Patty Lynn Smith'

middle_name = full_name[6:10]
print(middle_name)

Lynn
If you leave out the start index in a slicing expression, Python uses 0 as the starting index. Here
is an example:

[15]: full_name = 'Patty Lynn Smith'

first_name = full_name[:5]
print(first_name)

Patty

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 If you leave out the end index in a slicing expression, Python uses the length of the string as the
end index. Here is an example:

[17]: full_name = 'Patty Lynn Smith'

last_name = full_name[11:]
print(last_name)

Smith
What do you think the following code will assign to the my_string variable?

[19]: full_name = 'Patty Lynn Smith'

my_string = full_name[:]
print(my_string)

Patty Lynn Smith

The second statement assigns the entire string ‘Patty Lynn Smith’ to my_string. The statement
is equivalent to:

[20]: my_string = full_name[0 : len(full_name)]

print(my_string)

Patty Lynn Smith

Slicing expressions can also have step value, which can cause characters to be skipped in the string.
Here is an example of code that uses a slicing expression with a step value:

[21]: letters = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'

print(letters[0:26:2])

ACEGIKMOQSUWY

6 Testing, Searching, and Manipulating Strings

6.1 Testing Strings with in and not in
In Python you can use the in operator to determine whether one string is contained in another
string.
string1 in string2
string1 and string2 can be either string literals or variables referencing strings. The expression
returns true if string1 is found in string2. For example, look at the following code:

[23]: text = 'The GIFT University Gujranwala'

if 'GIFT' in text:
print('The string "GIFT" was found.')
else:
print('The string "GIFT" was not found.')

The string "GIFT" was found.

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 You can use the not in operator to determine whether one string is not contained in another string.
Here is an example:

[24]: names = 'Bill Joanne Susan Chris Juan Katie'

if 'Pierre' not in names:
print('Pierre was not found.')
else:
print('Pierre was found.')

Pierre was not found.

6.2 String Methods

We will discuss several string methods for performing the following types of operations: * Testing
the values of strings * Performing various modifications * Searching for substrings and replacing
sequences of characters
Here is the general format of a string method call:
stringvar.method(arguments)

6.3 String Testing Methods

The string methods shown in Fig:2 test a string for specific characteristics. For example, the isdigit
method returns true if the string contains only numeric digits. Otherwise, it returns false.

[25]: string1 = '1200'

if string1.isdigit():
print(string1, 'contains only digits.')
else:
print(string1, 'contains characters other than digits.')

1200 contains only digits.

Fig:2 String Methods

6.4 Modification Methods

Although strings are immutable, meaning they cannot be modified, they do have a number of
methods that return modified versions of themselves.
Fig:3 String Modification Methods

7 The Repetition Operator

The repetition operator(*) works with strings as well. Here is the general format:
string_to_copy * n

[27]: my_string = 'w' * 5

print(my_string)

5
 wwwww

[29]: print('Hello ' * 5)

Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello

8 Splitting a String
Strings in Python have a method named split that returns a list containing the words in the string.

[30]: # This program demonstrates the split method.

def main():
# Create a string with multiple words.
my_string = 'One two three four'
# Split the string.
word_list = my_string.split()
# Print the list of words.
print(word_list)
# Call the main function
main()

['One', 'two', 'three', 'four']

[31]: date_string = '11/26/2014'

If you want to break out the month, day, and year as items in a list, you can call the split method
using the ‘/’ character as a separator, as shown here:

[32]: date_list = date_string.split('/')

print(date_list)

['11', '26', '2014']

9 Exercise
9.1 Sum of Digits in a String
Write a program that asks the user to enter a series of single-digit numbers with nothing separating
them. The program should display the sum of all the single digit numbers in the string. For
example, if the user enters 2514, the method should return 12, which is the sum of 2, 5, 1, and 4.

9.2 Morse Code Converter

Morse code is a code where each letter of the English alphabet, each digit, and various punctuation
characters are represented by a series of dots and dashes. Table 8-4 shows part of the code. Write
a program that asks the user to enter a string, and then converts that string to Morse code.
Fig:4 Morse Code Table

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 9.3 Alphabetic Telephone Number Translator
Many companies use telephone numbers like 555-GET-FOOD so the number is easier for their
customers to remember. On a standard telephone, the alphabetic letters are mapped to numbers
in the following fashion:

Letters Number
A, B, and C 2
D, E, and F 3
G, H, and I 4
J, K, and L 5
M, N, and O 6
P, Q, R, and S 7
T, U, and V 8
W, X, Y, and Z 9

Write a program that asks the user to enter a 10-character telephone number in the format XXX-
XXX-XXXX. The application should display the telephone number with any alphabetic characters
that appeared in the original translated to their numeric equivalent. For example, if the user enters
555-GET-FOOD the application should display 555-438-3663.

9.4 Average No of Words

In this excercise make a text file. The text file should be stored as one sentence per line. Write a
program that reads the file’s contents and calculates the average number of words per sentence.

9.5 Sentence Capitalizer

Write a program with a function that accepts a string as an argument and returns a copy of the
string with the first character of each sentence capitalized. For instance, if the argument is “hello.
my name is Joe. what is your name?” the function should return the string “Hello. My name is
Joe. What is your name?” The program should let the user enter a string and then pass it to the
function. The modified string should be displayed.

9.6 Pig Latin

Write a program that accepts a sentence as input and converts each word to “Pig Latin.” In one
version, to convert a word to Pig Latin you remove the first letter and place that letter at the end
of the word. Then you append the string “ay” to the word. Here is an example:
English: I SLEPT MOST OF THE NIGHT
Pig Latin: IAY LEPTSAY OSTMAY FOAY HETAY IGHTNAY

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