Lesson: Working with Strings in Python

1. Creating Strings

In Python, text is called a string, and its data type is str.

You can create strings by enclosing text in either single (‘ ‘) or double (” “) quotes:

greeting = 'Hello'
place = "World"
message = greeting + ' ' + place   # Output: "Hello World"

 You can combine (concatenate) strings using the + operator.

2. Handling Quotes and Special Characters

Sometimes, your string needs to contain quotes or backslashes. Python gives you three ways to handle this:

Use Opposite Quote Types:

text = "She said, 'G'day!'"

Escape Quotes with a Backslash :

text = 'She said, 'G'day!''

Use Raw Strings to Keep Backslashes Literal:

path = r'C:UsersFatimaDocuments'

3. Printing Text

Use print() to show strings on the screen.

s = 'Line one.nLine two.'
print(s)

Output:

Line one.
Line two.

n means a newline character. Python interprets it automatically.

4. Accessing Parts of Strings

Strings in Python are sequences — you can access characters by their index.

Indexing (Zero-Based)

word = 'Python'
print(word[0])    # 'P'
print(word[-1])   # 'n' (last character)

Slicing (start:stop)

word = 'Python'

part = word[1:4]        # 'yth' (index 1 to 3)
start_to_mid = word[:2] # 'Py' (start to index 1)
mid_to_end = word[4:]   # 'on' (index 4 to end)

 Python slices always include the start index and exclude the stop index.

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