Understanding Strings in Python

In Python, strings can be enclosed in either single or double quotation marks. Learn how both types of quotation marks are used interchangeably to define string values with examples demonstrating their equivalence.

Strings

Strings in Python are surrounded by either single quotation marks or double quotation marks.

Example


# 'hello' is the same as "hello"
print("Hello")
print('Hello')

Output


Hello
Hello

Quotes Inside Quotes

You can use quotes inside a string, as long as they don't match the quotes surrounding the string:

Example


print("It's perfect")
print("He is called 'Jack'")
print('He is called "Jack"')

Output


It's perfect
He is called 'Jack'
He is called "Jack"

Assign String to a Variable

Assigning a string to a variable is done with the variable name followed by an equal sign and the string:

Example


a = "Hello"
print(a)

Output


Hello

Multiline Strings

You can assign a multiline string to a variable by using three quotes:

Using three double quotes:

Example


x = """Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."""
print(x)

Output


Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Or three single quotes:

Example


x = '''Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.'''
print(x)

Output


Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Note: In the result, the line breaks are inserted at the same position as in the code.

Strings are Arrays

Like many other popular programming languages, strings in Python are arrays of bytes representing unicode characters.

However, Python does not have a character data type; a single character is simply a string with a length of 1. Square brackets can be used to access elements of the string.

Example


# Get the character at position 1 (remember that the first character has the position 0)
a = "Hello, World!"
print(a[1])

Output

Looping Through a String

Since strings are arrays, we can loop through the characters in a string with a for loop:

Example


# Loop through the letters in the word "apple"
for x in "apple":
  print(x)

Output


a
p
p
l
e

Learn more about For Loops in our Python For Loops chapter.

String Length

To get the length of a string, use the len() function:

Example


# The len() function returns the length of a string
a = "Hello, World!"
print(len(a))

Output

Check String

To check if a certain phrase or character is present in a string, we can use the keyword in:

Example


# Check if "life" is present in the following text
txt = "The best things in life are free!"
print("life" in txt)
        
# Use it in an if statement
if "life" in txt:
  print("Yes, 'life' is present.")

Output


True
Yes, 'life' is present.

Learn more about If statements in our Python If...Else chapter.

Check if NOT

To check if a certain phrase or character is not present in a string, we can use the keyword not in:

Example


# Check if "expensive" is NOT present in the following text
txt = "The best things in life are free!"
print("expensive" not in txt)

# Use it in an if statement
if "expensive" not in txt:
  print("No, 'expensive' is NOT present.")

Output


True
No, 'expensive' is NOT present.