How do I get a substring of a string in Python?

Question

Is there a way to substring a string in Python, to get a new string from the third character to the end of the string?

Maybe like myString[2:end]?

Answer 1

If myString contains an account number that begins at offset 6 and has length 9, then you can extract the account number this way: acct = myString[6:][:9].

If the OP accepts that, they might want to try, in an experimental fashion,

myString[2:][:999999]

It works - no error is raised, and no default 'string padding' occurs.

Answer 2

Well, I got a situation where I needed to translate a PHP script to Python, and it had many usages of substr(string, beginning, LENGTH).
If I chose Python's string[beginning:end] I'd have to calculate a lot of end indexes, so the easier way was to use string[beginning:][:length], it saved me a lot of trouble.

Answer 3

Is there a way to substring a string in Python, to get a new string from the 3rd character to the end of the string?

Maybe like myString[2:end]?

Yes, this actually works if you assign, or bind, the name,end, to constant singleton, None:

>>> end = None
>>> myString = '1234567890'
>>> myString[2:end]
'34567890'

Slice notation has 3 important arguments:

• start
• stop
• step

Their defaults when not given are None - but we can pass them explicitly:

>>> stop = step = None
>>> start = 2
>>> myString[start:stop:step]
'34567890'

If leaving the second part means 'till the end', if you leave the first part, does it start from the start?

Yes, for example:

>>> start = None
>>> stop = 2
>>> myString[start:stop:step]
'12'

Note that we include start in the slice, but we only go up to, and not including, stop.

When step is None, by default the slice uses 1 for the step. If you step with a negative integer, Python is smart enough to go from the end to the beginning.

>>> myString[::-1]
'0987654321'

I explain slice notation in great detail in my answer to Explain slice notation Question.

Answer 4

>>> x = "Hello World!"
>>> x[2:]
'llo World!'
>>> x[:2]
'He'
>>> x[:-2]
'Hello Worl'
>>> x[-2:]
'd!'
>>> x[2:-2]
'llo Worl'

Python calls this concept "slicing" and it works on more than just strings. Take a look here for a comprehensive introduction.

Answer 5

Using hardcoded indexes itself can be a mess.

In order to avoid that, Python offers a built-in object slice().

string = "my company has 1000$ on profit, but I lost 500$ gambling."

If we want to know how many money I got left.

Normal solution:

final = int(string[15:19]) - int(string[43:46])
print(final)
>>>500

Using slices:

EARNINGS = slice(15, 19)
LOSSES = slice(43, 46)
final = int(string[EARNINGS]) - int(string[LOSSES])
print(final)
>>>500

Using slice you gain readability.

Answer 6

One example seems to be missing here: full (shallow) copy.

>>> x = "Hello World!"
>>> x
'Hello World!'
>>> x[:]
'Hello World!'
>>> x==x[:]
True
>>>

This is a common idiom for creating a copy of sequence types (not of interned strings), [:]. Shallow copies a list, see Python list slice syntax used for no obvious reason.