Mastering String Indexing and Slicing in Python

Dive Into the Basics of Navigating and Manipulating Strings for Python Beginners

Max N
2 min readApr 5, 2024

Understanding how to navigate and manipulate strings is a crucial skill for any Python programmer. In this article, we’ll explore the concepts of string indexing and slicing, which are essential for accessing and extracting specific parts of strings.

By the end, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to efficiently work with strings in Python.

Understanding String Indexing

In Python, each character in a string is assigned a unique index, starting from 0 for the first character, 1 for the second character, and so on. Negative indices are also supported, with -1 representing the last character, -2 representing the second-to-last character, and so forth. Let’s illustrate this with some examples:

# Define a string
word = "Python"

# Accessing individual characters
print(word[0]) # Output: P
print(word[2]) # Output: t
print(word[-1]) # Output: n

Slicing Strings

String slicing allows you to extract substrings from a larger string by specifying a range of indices. The syntax for slicing is string[start:end:step], where start is the index of the first…

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Max N

A writer that writes about JavaScript and Python to beginners. If you find my articles helpful, feel free to follow.