Lecture Eight

Strings in Python
The CSC213 Team
[2020|2021]
 Topics

▪ Basic String Operations

▪ String Slicing
▪ Testing, Searching, and Manipulating Strings
 Basic String Operations

▪ Many types of programs perform operations on

strings
▪ In Python, many tools for examining and
manipulating strings
▪ Strings are sequences, so many of the tools that work with
sequences work with strings
 Accessing the Individual
Characters in a String (1 of 2)
▪ To access an individual character in a string:
▪ Use a for loop
▪ Format: for character in string:
▪ Useful when need to iterate over the whole string, such as to
count the occurrences of a specific character
▪ Use indexing
▪ Each character has an index specifying its position in the string,
starting at 0
▪ Format: character = my_string[i]
 Accessing the Individual
Characters in a String (2 of 3)
 Accessing the Individual
Characters in a String (3 of 3)
▪ IndexError exception will occur if:
▪ You try to use an index that is out of range for the string
▪ Likely to happen when loop iterates beyond the end of the string
▪ len(string) function can be used to obtain the
length of a string
▪ Useful to prevent loops from iterating beyond the end of a
string
 String Concatenation

▪ Concatenation: appending one string to the end of

another string
▪ Use the + operator to produce a string that is a combination of
its operands
▪ The augmented assignment operator += can also be used to
concatenate strings
▪ The operand on the left side of the += operator must be an
existing variable; otherwise, an exception is raised
 Strings Are Immutable (1 of 2)

▪ Strings are immutable

▪ Once they are created, they cannot be changed
▪ Concatenation doesn’t actually change the existing string,
▪ but rather creates a new string and assigns the new string to the
previously used variable
▪ Cannot use an expression of the form
string[index] = new_character
▪ Statement of this type will raise an exception
Strings Are Immutable (2 of 2)
 String Slicing

▪ Slice: span of items taken from a sequence, known as

substring
▪ Slicing format: string[start : end]
▪ Expression will return a string containing a copy of the
characters from start up to, but not including, end
▪ If start not specified, 0 is used for start index
▪ If end not specified, len(string) is used for end index
▪ Slicing expressions can include a step value and negative
indexes relative to end of string
 Testing, Searching, and
Manipulating Strings
▪ You can use the in operator to determine whether one
string is contained in another string
▪ General format: string1 in string2
▪ string1 and string2 can be string literals or variables
referencing strings
▪ Similarly you can use the not in operator to
determine whether one string is not contained in
another string
 String Methods
▪ Strings in Python have many types of methods, divided
into different types of operations
▪ General format:
mystring.method(arguments)
▪ Type of String Methods
▪ Testing Methods- Test a string for specific characteristics
▪ Generally Boolean methods, that return True if a condition exists,
and False otherwise
▪ Modification Methods- Modifies strings
▪ Search and Replace Methods-
Quick In-Class Exercise (10 Mins)

▪ Page 446-447 of Text Book 15

String Methods: Modification Methods

▪ Some methods return a copy of the string, to which

modifications have been made
▪ Simulate strings as mutable objects
▪ String comparisons are case-sensitive
▪ Uppercase characters are distinguished from lowercase
characters
▪ lower and upper methods can be used for making case-
insensitive string comparisons
 String Methods:
Search and Replace Method
▪ Programs commonly need to search for substrings
▪ Several methods to accomplish this:
▪ endswith(substring): checks if the string ends with
substring
▪ Returns True or False
▪ startswith(substring): checks if the string starts with
substring
▪ Returns True or False
 String Methods:
Search and Replace Method

▪ Several methods to accomplish this

▪ find(substring): searches for substring within the string
▪ Returns lowest index of the substring, or if the substring is not
contained in the string, returns -1
▪ replace(substring, new_string):
▪ Returns a copy of the string where every occurrence of
substring is replaced with new_string
 The Repetition Operator
▪ Repetition operator: makes multiple copies of a
string and joins them together
▪ The * symbol is a repetition operator when applied to a string
and an integer
▪ String is left operand; number is right
▪ General format: string_to_copy * n
▪ Variable references a new string which contains
multiple copies of the original string
 Splitting a String

▪ split method: returns a list containing the words in

the string
▪ By default, uses space as separator
▪ Can specify a different separator by passing it as an argument
to the split method
23
 Summary
▪ This chapter covered:
▪ String operations, including:
▪ Methods for iterating over strings
▪ Repetition and concatenation operators
▪ Strings as immutable objects
▪ Slicing strings and testing strings
▪ String methods
▪ Splitting a string
 25
In-Class Exercise 2 (20 Mins)
 26
In-Class Exercise-2