2.7. Strings

Strings in Python are identified as a contiguous set of characters in between quotation marks. Python allows for either pairs of single or double quotes. Subsets of strings can be taken using the slice operator ( [ ] and [ : ] ) with indexes starting at 0 in the beginning of the string and working their way from -1 at the end. The plus ( + ) sign is the string concatenation operator, and the asterisk ( * ) is the repetition operator. Here are some examples of strings and string usage:

>>> pystr = 'Python'
>>> iscool = 'is cool!'
>>> pystr[0]
'P'
>>> pystr[2:5]
'tho'
>>> iscool[:2]
'is'
>>> iscool[3:]
'cool!'
>>> iscool[-1]
'!'
>>> pystr + iscool
'Pythonis cool!'
>>> pystr + ' ' + iscool
'Python is cool!'
>>> pystr * 2
'PythonPython'
>>> '-' * 20
'--------------------'

You can learn more about strings in Chapter 6.