Python Basics · Lesson 5
Strings & String Operations
Learn how Python stores and works with text using strings. Practice creating strings, joining text, repeating strings, finding characters and measuring string length.
What you will learn
- • What a string is
- • Single and double quotes
- • String variables
- • Concatenation with +
- • String repetition with *
- • String indexing
- • Finding string length
- • Working with spaces and text
Part 1
What is a string?
A string is a sequence of characters used to represent text. Names, cities, product names, messages and email addresses can all be represented using strings in Python.
"Hello"
"Vista Academy"
"Python"
"Dehradun"CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
Which of the following is a Python string?
Creating strings
Python allows strings to be written using single quotes or double quotes.
name = "Yogesh"
city = 'Dehradun'
print(name)
print(city)CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
Which two quotation styles can create a basic Python string?
Complete the string: name = _____Python_____
Storing text in variables
Strings can be assigned to variables just like numbers and other Python values.
student = "Rahul"
course = "Python Basics"
print(student)
print(course)CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What value is stored in the variable course?
Important operation
Joining strings with +
The + operator can join two strings together. This is called string concatenation.
first = "Vista"
second = "Academy"
result = first + " " + second
print(result)CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What will this code print? print("Data" + " Analytics")
Which operator joins two strings together? _____
Watch the spaces
"Hello" + "World"Result: HelloWorld
"Hello" + " " + "World"Result: Hello World
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What is the output of "Data" + "Science"?
Repeating strings with *
The multiplication operator can repeat a string multiple times.
print("Hi " * 3)CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What will "Hi " * 3 produce?
Complete the repetition: "Python" _____ 3
Finding string length
Python's len() function returns the number of characters in a string, including spaces.
name = "Python"
print(len(name))CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What is the result of len("Python")?
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What is the result of len("Vista Academy")?
Important concept
Accessing characters with indexing
Python strings use indexes to access individual characters. Indexing starts at 0.
word = "Python"
print(word[0])
print(word[1])
print(word[5])| Character | P | y | t | h | o | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Index | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What does "Python"[0] return?
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What does "Python"[3] return?
Negative indexing
Python also supports negative indexes. Index -1 refers to the last character.
word = "Python"
print(word[-1])CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What does "Python"[-1] return?
Predict the output
Think before running the code
name = "Python"
print(name[1])
print(len(name))CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What will the two print statements display?
Strings and numbers are different
Python treats text and numbers differently. You cannot directly concatenate a string and an integer using +.
age = 20
print("Age: " + age)CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
Why does this code cause a problem?
age = 20
print("Age: " + str(age))Debug the string code
first_name = "Rahul"
last_name = "Sharma"
full_name = first_name last_name
print(full_name)CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
What is missing in the full_name expression?
Practice
Complete the code
Complete: greeting = "Hello" _____ " Python"
Complete the function: length = _____(name)
Access the first character: name[_____]
Access the last character: name[_____]
Mini Challenge
Build a student message
Create variables for a student's name and course. Then combine them into one sentence.
name = "Aman"
course = "Python Basics"
message = name + " is learning " + course
print(message)Expected output:
Aman is learning Python BasicsFinal Challenge
Create a simple profile
Create variables for a person's name, city and course. Build a single profile message using string concatenation. Then print the length of the person's name.
name = "Priya"
city = "Dehradun"
course = "Data Analytics"
profile = name + " from " + city + " is learning " + course
print(profile)
print(len(name))Change the values and create your own profile.
Lesson recap
- ✓ Strings represent text.
- ✓ Strings can use single or double quotes.
- ✓ Strings can be stored in variables.
- ✓ + joins strings together.
- ✓ * can repeat strings.
- ✓ len() returns the number of characters.
- ✓ String indexes start at 0.
- ✓ -1 refers to the last character.
- ✓ Strings and numbers are different data types.