Strings - Advanced Python 05

# use singe or double quotes
my_string = 'Hello'
my_string = "Hello"
my_string = "I' m  a 'Geek'"

# escaping backslash
my_string = 'I\' m  a "Geek"'
my_string = 'I\' m a \'Geek\''
print(my_string)

# triple quotes for multiline strings
my_string = """Hello
World"""
print(my_string)

# backslash if you want to continue in the next line
my_string = "Hello \
World"
print(my_string)

I' m a 'Geek'
Hello
World
Hello World

my_string = "Hello World"

# get character by referring to index
b = my_string[0]
print(b)

# Substrings with slicing
b = my_string[1:3] # Note that the last index is not included
print(b)
b = my_string[:5] # from beginning
print(b)
b = my_string[6:] # until the end
print(b)
b = my_string[::2] # start to end with every second item
print(b)
b = my_string[::-1] # reverse the string with a negative step:
print(b)

H
el
Hello
World
HloWrd
dlroW olleH

# concat strings with +
greeting = "Hello"
name = "Tom"
sentence = greeting + ' ' + name
print(sentence)

Hello Tom

# Iterating over a string by using a for in loop
my_string = 'Hello'
for i in my_string:
    print(i)

H
e
l
l
o

if "e" in "Hello":
    print("yes")
if "llo" in "Hello":
    print("yes")

yes
yes

my_string = "     Hello World "

# remove white space
my_string = my_string.strip()
print(my_string)

# number of characters
print(len(my_string))

# Upper and lower cases
print(my_string.upper())
print(my_string.lower())

# startswith and endswith
print("hello".startswith("he"))
print("hello".endswith("llo"))

# find first index of a given substring, -1 otherwise
print("Hello".find("o"))

# count number of characters/substrings
print("Hello".count("e"))

# replace a substring with another string (only if the substring is found)
# Note: The original string stays the same
message = "Hello World"
new_message = message.replace("World", "Universe")
print(new_message)

# split the string into a list
my_string = "how are you doing"
a = my_string.split() # default argument is " "
print(a)
my_string = "one,two,three"
a = my_string.split(",")
print(a)

# join elements of a list into a string
my_list = ['How', 'are', 'you', 'doing']
a = ' '.join(my_list) # the given string is the separator, e.g. ' ' between each argument
print(a)

Hello World
11
HELLO WORLD
hello world
['how', 'are', 'you', 'doing']
['one', 'two', 'three']
True
True
4
1
Hello Universe
How are you doing

# use braces as placeholders
a = "Hello {0} and {1}".format("Bob", "Tom")
print(a)

# the positions are optional for the default order
a = "Hello {} and {}".format("Bob", "Tom")
print(a)

a = "The integer value is {}".format(2)
print(a)

# some special format rules for numbers
a = "The float value is {0:.3f}".format(2.1234)
print(a)
a = "The float value is {0:e}".format(2.1234)
print(a)
a = "The binary value is {0:b}".format(2)
print(a)

# old style formatting by using % operator
print("Hello %s and %s" % ("Bob", "Tom")) # must be a tuple for multiple arguments
val =  3.14159265359
print("The decimal value is %d" % val)
print("The float value is %f" % val)
print("The float value is %.2f" % val)

Hello Bob and Tom
Hello Bob and Tom
The integer value is 2
The float value is 2.123
The float value is 2.123400e+00
The binary value is 10
Hello Bob and Tom
The decimal value is 10
The float value is 10.123450
The float value is 10.12

name = "Eric"
age = 25
a = f"Hello, {name}. You are {age}."
print(a)
pi = 3.14159
a = f"Pi is {pi:.3f}"
print(a)
# f-Strings are evaluated at runtime, which allows expressions
a = f"The value is {2*60}"
print(a)

Hello, Eric. You are 25.
Pi is 3.142
The value is 120

# since a string is immutable, adding strings with +,  or += always 
# creates a new string, and therefore is expensive for multiple operations
# --> join method is much faster
from timeit import default_timer as timer
my_list = ["a"] * 1000000

# bad
start = timer()
a = ""
for i in my_list:
    a += i
end = timer()
print("concatenate string with + : %.5f" % (end - start))

# good
start = timer()
a = "".join(my_list)
end = timer()
print("concatenate string with join(): %.5f" % (end - start))

concat string with + : 0.34527
concat string with join(): 0.01191