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Data Types II - Strings

Learn to work with text in Python

What You'll Learn

  • What strings are
  • Creating and using text
  • Combining text
  • Common text operations

What are Strings?

Strings are text. Anything inside quotes is a string:

code.py
name = "John"
message = 'Hello World'
address = "123 Main Street"

Creating Strings

Use Single or Double Quotes

Both work the same:

code.py
name1 = "Sarah"
name2 = 'Mike'

print(name1)  # Sarah
print(name2)  # Mike

Long Text (Multiple Lines)

Use triple quotes:

code.py
story = """
This is a long story.
It has multiple lines.
Python keeps them all!
"""

print(story)

Combining Strings

Using + (Concatenation)

code.py
first_name = "John"
last_name = "Smith"

full_name = first_name + " " + last_name
print(full_name)
# Shows: John Smith

Combining Text and Numbers

Convert numbers to strings first:

code.py
age = 25
message = "I am " + str(age) + " years old"
print(message)
# Shows: I am 25 years old

Easy Way (f-strings)

Put f before quotes and use {}:

code.py
name = "Sarah"
age = 28

message = f"My name is {name} and I am {age} years old"
print(message)
# Shows: My name is Sarah and I am 28 years old

String Operations

Length (How many characters)

code.py
name = "Python"
length = len(name)
print(length)
# Shows: 6

Uppercase and Lowercase

code.py
text = "hello world"

uppercase = text.upper()
print(uppercase)
# Shows: HELLO WORLD

lowercase = text.lower()
print(lowercase)
# Shows: hello world

Title Case (First Letter Capital)

code.py
name = "john smith"
title_name = name.title()
print(title_name)
# Shows: John Smith

Replace Text

code.py
sentence = "I like cats"
new_sentence = sentence.replace("cats", "dogs")
print(new_sentence)
# Shows: I like dogs

Remove Extra Spaces

code.py
text = "   hello   "
clean = text.strip()
print(clean)
# Shows: hello

Accessing Parts of Strings

Each character has a position (starts at 0):

code.py
word = "Python"

first = word[0]
print(first)
# Shows: P

second = word[1]
print(second)
# Shows: y

last = word[-1]
print(last)
# Shows: n

Get Multiple Characters

code.py
word = "Python"

first_three = word[0:3]
print(first_three)
# Shows: Pyt

last_three = word[-3:]
print(last_three)
# Shows: hon

Practice Examples

Example 1: Personal greeting

code.py
first_name = "Emma"
last_name = "Wilson"
age = 25

greeting = f"Hello! My name is {first_name} {last_name}."
info = f"I am {age} years old."

print(greeting)
print(info)

Example 2: Email generator

code.py
name = "john smith"
domain = "gmail.com"

# Clean the name
clean_name = name.replace(" ", ".")
email = clean_name + "@" + domain

print(email)
# Shows: john.smith@gmail.com

Example 3: Format names

code.py
name = "JOHN SMITH"
proper_name = name.title()
print(proper_name)
# Shows: John Smith

Checking Text

Check if text is inside

code.py
sentence = "I love Python programming"

if "Python" in sentence:
    print("Yes, Python is mentioned!")
# Shows: Yes, Python is mentioned!

Check if starts with

code.py
email = "john@gmail.com"

if email.startswith("john"):
    print("Email starts with john")

Check if ends with

code.py
filename = "photo.jpg"

if filename.endswith(".jpg"):
    print("This is a JPG image")

Repeating Strings

Use * to repeat:

code.py
laugh = "ha" * 3
print(laugh)
# Shows: hahaha

line = "-" * 20
print(line)
# Shows: --------------------

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Mixing quotes

code.py
text = "Hello'  # Wrong!
text = "Hello"  # Correct!

Mistake 2: Forgetting to convert numbers

code.py
age = 25
text = "I am " + age  # Error!
text = "I am " + str(age)  # Correct!

Mistake 3: Using quotes inside quotes

code.py
# Wrong way
text = "He said "Hi""

# Right way
text = "He said 'Hi'"
text = 'He said "Hi"'

Quick Reference

code.py
len(text)           # Length
text.upper()        # UPPERCASE
text.lower()        # lowercase
text.title()        # Title Case
text.replace(old, new)  # Replace text
text.strip()        # Remove spaces
str(number)         # Number to string

Summary

  • Strings are text in quotes
  • Use + to combine strings
  • f-strings make combining easy: f"Hello {name}"
  • Many useful operations: upper, lower, replace
  • Access characters with [0], [1], etc.
  • Convert numbers with str()

What's Next?

Now let's learn about True/False values (Booleans)!

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Data Types I - Numbers
Next
Data Types III - Booleans
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