Learn the basics of Python 3-Chapter 6: Strings

1.Introduction to Strings

In Python, the way we store something like a word, a sentence, or even a whole paragraph
is as a string. A string is a sequence of characters contained within a pair of 'single quotes' or "double quotes".A string can be any length and can contain any letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces.

We will learn how to slice strings, select specific characters from strings, search strings for characters, iteratethrough strings, and use strings in conditional statements.

Let’s get started.

# Save your favorite word as a string to the variable favorite_word.
favorite_word = 'Strong'

# Print favorite_word.
print(favorite_word)
# =>Strong

 2.They're all Lists!

A string can be thought of as a list of characters. Like any other list, each character in a string has an index.We can select specific letters from this string using the index.

# One of the most common things that are represented by strings is names.
# Save your name as a string to the variable my_name.
my_name = 'Steven'

# Select the first letter of the variable my_name and save it to first_initial.
first_initial = my_name[0]

 3.Cut Me a Slice of String

Not only can we select a single character from a string, but we can also select entire
chunks of characters from a string. We can do this with the following syntax:string[first_index:last_index]

This is called slicing a string. When we slice a string we are creating a substring - a brand new string that starts at (and includes) the first_index and ends at (but excludes) the last_index.

# A new employee, Rodrigo Villanueva, is starting today and you need to create his account. His first_name and last_name are stored as strings:
first_name = "Rodrigo"
last_name = "Villanueva"

# Create a variable new_account by slicing the first five letters of his last_name.
new_account = last_name[:5]

# Create a variable called temp_password by creating a slice out of the third through sixth letters of last_name.
temp_password = last_name[2:6]

4.Concatenating Strings

We can also concatenate, or combine, two existing strings together into a new string.Write a function called account_generator() that takes two inputs, first_name and last_name and concatenates the first three letters of each and then returns the new account name.

first_name = "Julie"
last_name = "Blevins"

def account_generator(firstname, lastname):
    new_account_name = firstname[:3] + lastname[:3]
    return new_account_name

# Test your function on the first_name and last_name provided and save it to the variable new_account.
new_account = account_generator(first_name, last_name)

 5.More and More String Slicing (How Long is that String?)

Python comes with some built-in functions for working with strings. One of the most commonly used of these functions is len(). len() returns the number of characters in a string:

Write a function called password_generator() that takes two inputs, first_name and last_name, and then concatenates the last three letters of each and returns them as a string. 

first_name = "Reiko"
last_name = "Matsuki"

def password_generator(firstname, lastname):
    length1 = len(firstname)
    length2 = len(lastname)
    return firstname[length1 - 3:] + lastname[length2 - 3:]

# Test your function on the provided first_name and last_name and save it to the variable temp_password.
temp_password = password_generator(first_name, last_name)
print(temp_password)
# =>ikouki

 6.Negative Indices

In the previous exercise, we used len() to get a slice of characters at the end of a string.
There’s a much easier way to do this — we can use negative indices! Negative indices count backward from the end of the string, so string_name[-1] is the last character of the string, string_name[-2] is the second last character of the string, etc.

# Use negative indices to find the second to last character in company_motto. Save this to the variable second_to_last.
company_motto = "Copeland's Corporate Company helps you capably cope with the constant cacophony of daily life"
second_to_last = company_motto[-2]

# Use negative indices to create a slice of the last 4 characters in company_motto.
# Save this to the variable final_word.
final_word = company_motto[-4:]

 7.Strings are Immutable

So far in this lesson, we’ve been selecting characters from strings, slicing strings, and concatenating strings. Each time we perform one of these operations we are creating an entirely new string.

This is because strings are immutable. This means that we cannot change a string once it is created. We can use it to create other strings, but we cannot change the string itself.

# Try changing the first character of first_name by running first_name[0] = "R"
first_name = "Bob"
last_name = "Daily"

first_name[0] = "R"
# =>TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment

Oh right! Strings are immutable, so we can’t change an individual character.
Okay that’s no problem—we can still fix this! Delete the code you just wrote for step 1.Then, concatenate the string "R" with a slice of first_name that includes everything but the first character, "B", and save it to a new string fixed_first_name. 

fixed_first_name = "R" + first_name[1:]
print(fixed_first_name)
# =>Rob

 8.Escape Characters

We’ll have accidentally ended the string before we wanted to by including the " character. The way we can do this is by introducing escape characters. By adding a backslash in front of the special character we want to escape, \", we can include it in a string.

# When Rob Daily  set up his account he set his password to be theycallme"crazy"91
password = "theycallme"crazy"91"
# =>SyntaxError: invalid syntax

His password was causing some errors in the system because of the " marks. Rewrite his password using escape characters and save it to the variable password. 

password = "theycallme\"crazy\"91"
print(password)
# =>theycallme"crazy"91

9.Iterating through Strings

Because strings are lists, that means we can iterate through a string using for or while loops. This opens up a whole range of possibilities of ways we can manipulate and analyze strings.

Write a new function called get_length() that takes a string as an input and returns the number of characters in that string. Do this by iterating through the string. Do not use the len() function! 

def get_length(string):
    length = 0
    for letter in string:
        length += 1
    return length


length = get_length("manipulate")
print(length)
# =>10

 10.Strings and Conditionals (Part One)

When we iterate through a string we do something with each character. By including conditional statements inside of these iterations, we can start to do some really cool stuff.

Write a function called letter_check that takes two inputs, word and letter. This function should return True if the word contains the letter and False if it does not 

def letter_check(word, letter):
    for i in word:
        if i == letter:
            return True
    return False

# We tested your function using letter_check("strawberry", "a") and expected it to return True
print(letter_check("strawberry", "a"))
# => True

# We tested your function using letter_check("strawberry", "o") and expected it to return False
print(letter_check("strawberry", "o"))
# => False

 11.Strings and Conditionals (Part Two)

There’s an even easier way than iterating through the entire string to determine if a character is in a string. We can do this type of check more efficiently using in. in checks if one string is part of another string. Here, letter in word is a boolean expression that is True if the string letter is in the string word.

print("e" in "blueberry")
# => True

print("a" in "blueberry")
# => False

 In fact, this method is more powerful than the function you wrote in the last exercise because it not only works with letters, but with entire strings as well.

print("blue" in "blueberry")
# => True

print("blue" in "strawberry")
# => False

It can be helpful to include more than one boolean expression in the same line of code. To do this, use and or and not in between the boolean expressions. 

print("e" in "blueberry" and "e" in "carrot")
# => False

print("e" in "blueberry" and not "e" in "carrot")
# => True

 Write a function called contains that takes two arguments, big_string and little_string and returns True if big_string contains little_string. or example contains("watermelon", "melon") should return True and contains("watermelon", "berry") should return False.

def contains(big_string, little_string):
    if little_string in big_string:
        return True
    else:
        return False


print(contains("watermelon", "melon"))
# => True

print(contains("watermelon", "berry"))
# => False

Write a function called common_letters that takes two arguments, string_one and string_two and then returns a list with all of the letters they have in common.The letters in the returned list should be unique. Expected the test common_letters('manhattan', 'san francisco') to return [‘a’, ‘n’] 

def common_letters(string_one, string_two):
    common = []
    for i in string_one:
        for j in string_two:
            if i == j and not i in common:
                common.append(i)
    return common


print(common_letters('manhattan', 'san francisco'))
# =>['a', 'n']

 12.Review

Let’s start with username_generator. Create a function called username_generator take two inputs, first_name and last_name and returns a user_name. The username should be a slice of the first three letters of their first name and the first four letters of their last name. If their first name is less than three letters or their last name is less than four letters it should use their entire names.

For example, if the employee’s name is Abe Simpson the function should generate the username AbeSimp.

def username_generator(first_name, last_name):
    if len(first_name) < 3 or len(last_name) < 4:
        user_name = first_name + last_name
    else:
        user_name = first_name[:3] + last_name[:4]
    return user_name


print(username_generator("Abe", "Simpson "))
# =>AbeSimp

Great work! Now for the temporary password, they want the function to take the input user name and shift all of the letters by one to the right, so the last letter of the username ends up as the first letter and so forth. For example, if the username is AbeSimp, then the temporary password generated should be pAbeSim.

def password_generator(user_name):
  password = ""
  password = user_name[-1:] + user_name[0:-1]
  return password

print(password_generator("AbeSimp"))
# =>pAbeSim