---
title: Manipulating strings
description: An escape character is created by typing a backslash \ followed by the character you want to insert.
---

## Multiline Strings

>>> print(
... """Dear Alice,
...
... Eve's cat has been arrested for catnapping,
... cat burglary, and extortion.
...
... Sincerely,
... Bob"""
... )

# Dear Alice,

# Eve's cat has been arrested for catnapping,
# cat burglary, and extortion.

# Sincerely,
# Bob

## Indexing and Slicing strings

H e l l o w o r l d !
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

### Indexing

>>> spam = 'Hello world!'

>>> spam[0]
# 'H'

>>> spam[4]
# 'o'

>>> spam[-1]
# '!'

### Slicing

>>> spam = 'Hello world!'

>>> spam[0:5]
# 'Hello'

>>> spam[:5]
# 'Hello'

>>> spam[6:]
# 'world!'

>>> spam[6:-1]
# 'world'

>>> spam[:-1]
# 'Hello world'

>>> spam[::-1]
# '!dlrow olleH'

>>> fizz = spam[0:5]
>>> fizz
# 'Hello'

## The `in` and `not in` operators

>>> 'Hello' in 'Hello World'
# True

>>> 'Hello' in 'Hello'
# True

>>> 'HELLO' in 'Hello World'
# False

>>> '' in 'spam'
# True

>>> 'cats' not in 'cats and dogs'
# False

## Escape characters

An escape character is created by typing a backslash `\` followed by the character you want to insert.

| Escape character | Prints as |
| ---------------- | -------------------- |
| `\'` | Single quote |
| `\"` | Double quote |
| `\t` | Tab |
| `\n` | Newline (line break) |
| `\\` | Backslash |

>>> print("Hello there!\nHow are you?\nI\'m doing fine.")
# Hello there!
# How are you?
# I'm doing fine.

## Raw strings

A raw string entirely ignores all escape characters and prints any backslash that appears in the string.

>>> print(r"Hello there!\nHow are you?\nI\'m doing fine.")
# Hello there!\nHow are you?\nI\'m doing fine.

## `%` operator

>>> name = 'Pete'
>>> 'Hello %s' % name
# "Hello Pete"

We can use the `%d` format specifier to convert an int value to a string:

>>> num = 5
>>> 'I have %d apples' % num
# "I have 5 apples"

## Formatted String Literals or f-Strings

If your are using Python 3.6+, string `f-Strings` are the recommended way to format strings.

<base-disclaimer>
<base-disclaimer-title>
From the <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#f-strings">Python 3 documentation</a>
</base-disclaimer-title>
<base-disclaimer-content>
A formatted string literal or f-string is a string literal that is prefixed with `f` or `F`. These strings may contain replacement fields, which are expressions delimited by curly braces {}. While other string literals always have a constant value, formatted strings are really expressions evaluated at run time.
</base-disclaimer-content>
</base-disclaimer>

>>> name = 'Elizabeth'
>>> f'Hello {name}!'
# 'Hello Elizabeth!'

It is even possible to do inline arithmetic with it:

>>> a = 5
>>> b = 10
>>> f'Five plus ten is {a + b} and not {2 * (a + b)}.'
# 'Five plus ten is 15 and not 30.'

### Multiline f-Strings

>>> name = 'Robert'
>>> messages = 12
>>> (
... f'Hi, {name}. '
... f'You have {messages} unread messages'
... )
# 'Hi, Robert. You have 12 unread messages'

## Formatting Digits

Rounding

>>> a = 3.1415926
>>> f"{a:.2f}"
# '3.14'

Showing as Percentage

>>> a = 0.816562
>>> f"{a:.2%}"
# '81.66%'

### Number formatting table

| Number | Format | Output | description |
| ---------- | ------- | --------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| 3.1415926 | {:.2f} | 3.14 | Format float 2 decimal places |
| 3.1415926 | {:+.2f} | +3.14 | Format float 2 decimal places with sign |
| -1 | {:+.2f} | -1.00 | Format float 2 decimal places with sign |
| 2.71828 | {:.0f} | 3 | Format float with no decimal places |
| 4 | {:0>2d} | 04 | Pad number with zeros (left padding, width 2) | |
| 11 | {:11d} | 11 | Right-aligned (default, width 10) |
| 11 | {:<11d} | 11 | Left-aligned (width 10) |
| 11 | {:^11d} | 11 | Center aligned (width 10) |

## `upper()`, `lower()` and `title()`

Transforms a string to upper, lower and title case:

>>> greet = 'Hello world!'
>>> greet.upper()
# 'HELLO WORLD!'

>>> greet.lower()
# 'hello world!'

>>> greet.title()
# 'Hello World!'

## `isupper()` and `islower()` methods

Returns `True` or `False` after evaluating if a string is in upper or lower case:

>>> spam = 'Hello world!'
>>> spam.islower()
# False

>>> spam.isupper()
# False

>>> 'HELLO'.isupper()
# True

>>> 'abc12345'.islower()
# True

>>> '12345'.islower()
# False

>>> '12345'.isupper()
# False

## The `isX()` string methods

| Method | Description |
| ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `isalpha()` | returns `True` if the string consists only of letters. |
| `isalnum()` | returns `True` if the string consists only of letters and numbers. |
| `isdecimal()` | returns `True` if the string consists only of numbers. |
| `isspace()` | returns `True` if the string consists only of spaces, tabs, and new-lines. |
| `istitle()` | returns `True` if the string consists only of words that begin with an uppercase letter followed by only lowercase characters. |

## `startswith()` and `endswith()`

>>> 'Hello world!'.startswith('Hello')
# True

>>> 'Hello world!'.endswith('world!')
# True

>>> 'abc123'.startswith('abcdef')
# False

>>> 'abc123'.endswith('12')
# False

>>> 'Hello world!'.startswith('Hello world!')
# True

>>> 'Hello world!'.endswith('Hello world!')
# True

## `replace()`

The `replace()` function is like a “search and replace” operation in a word processor

>>> greet = 'Hello Bob'
>>> nstr = greet.replace('Bob','Jane')
>>> print(nstr)
# Hello Jane

## `join()` and `split()`

### `join()`

The `join()` method takes all the items in an iterable, like a list, dictionary, tuple or set, and joins them into a string. You can also specify a separator.

>>> ''.join(['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon'])
'MynameisSimon'

>>> ', '.join(['cats', 'rats', 'bats'])
# 'cats, rats, bats'

>>> ' '.join(['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon'])
# 'My name is Simon'

>>> 'ABC'.join(['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon'])
# 'MyABCnameABCisABCSimon'

### `split()`

The `split()` method splits a `string` into a `list`. By default, it will use whitespace to separate the items, but you can also set another character of choice:

>>> 'My name is Simon'.split()
# ['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon']

>>> 'MyABCnameABCisABCSimon'.split('ABC')
# ['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon']

>>> 'My name is Simon'.split('m')
# ['My na', 'e is Si', 'on']

>>> ' My  name is  Simon'.split()
# ['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon']

>>> ' My  name is  Simon'.split(' ')
# ['', 'My', '', 'name', 'is', '', 'Simon']

## Removing whitespace with `strip()`, `rstrip()`, and `lstrip()`

>>> spam = '    Hello World     '
>>> spam.strip()
# 'Hello World'

>>> spam.lstrip()
# 'Hello World     '

>>> spam.rstrip()
# '    Hello World'