Python String Functions

Python string functions manipulate the string. In this post we'll learn about slicing, splitting, replacing and case conversion of string.

Slicing a part of the string.

Syntax :

variable_name[slice from character position : to position]

Example

string = "Good Morning"
print(string[5:12])
print(string[5:])
print(string[:5])

#PYTHON OUTPUT
Morning
Morning
Good

To remove any leading or trailing spaces from string using strip() method

Example

string = " Good Morning"
one plus one is two and two plus two is four
['one', 'plus', 'one', 'is', 'two', 'and', 'two', 'plus', 'two', 'is', 'four']
print(string)
print(string.strip(' '))

#PYTHON OUTPUT
    Good Morning
Good Morning    

To count characters in a string using len(variable_name)

Example

string = "Good Job!"    
print(len(string))

#PYTHON OUTPUT
9

Convert strings of the lower case to upper case

Example

string = "this sentence will be printed in upper case"    
string_l = "THIS SENTENCE WILL BE PRINTED IN LOWER CASE"  
string_c = "first character of each letter will be capitalized"
print(string.upper())
print(string_l.lower())
print(string_c.title())

#PYTHON OUTPUT
THIS SENTENCE WILL BE PRINTED IN UPPER CASE
this sentence will be printed in lower case
First Character Of Each Letter Will Be Capitalized

Replace a particular character or words in a string using variable_name.replace('character to find', 'character to replace')

Example

x = 'Today I woke up at 6 am for cricket coaching'
print(x)
print(x.replace('6', '5'))

#PYTHON OUTPUT
Today I woke up at 5 am for cricket coaching

Now to replace letters of multiple occurrences specify count in the optional parameter

Example

x = 'one plus one is two and two plus two is four'
print(x)
print(x.replace('two', 'TWO'))
print(x.replace('two', 'TWO', 1))
print(x.replace('two', 'TWO', 2))

#PYTHON OUTPUT
one plus one is two and two plus two is four
one plus one is TWO and TWO plus TWO is four
one plus one is TWO and TWO plus two is four

Some times we need to explode stings into multiple fragments for that use split() method.

Syntax :

variable_name.split(specify character, word or symbol for split)

Example

x = 'one plus one is two and two plus two is four'
print(x)
print(x.split(' ')) #split's whitespaces

#PYTHON OUTPUT
one plus one is two and two plus two is four
['one', 'plus', 'one', 'is', 'two', 'and', 'two', 'plus', 'two', 'is', 'four']

Example

x = 'There comma, will split this string'
print(x)
print(x.split(',')) #split's comma

#PYTHON OUTPUT
There comma, will split this string
['There comma', ' will split this string']

This article was originally published in The Code Learners - Python String Functions