When the strip is used as a noun, the strip can be said as an act of undressing. However, when it is used as a verb, it means cleaning or clearing out something. But, in terms of the programming language, we are discussing Python stripchar is a built-in function. The stripchar of Python provides a particular character to be removed and also the string from which you want it to be removed. It will remove those characters from the string and will provide you with a new string after stripping out the mentioned character.
Example:
#remove specific characters using strip
my_String=” $$$Helloo$$$”
character_To_Remove=”$”
result=my_String.strip(character_To_Remove) #using strip with specific character to be removed
print(result) # Output: Hello
Example 2:
my_String=”###World###”
character_To_remove=”#”
result=my_String.strip(character_To_Remove) #using strip with specific character to be removed
print(result) #Output: World
Now after having an understanding of the Python stripchar method, it is also imperative to know the workings of string in Python.
String:
- Strings in Python are sequences of characters, enclosed in single(‘ ‘), double(” “), or triple(“‘ “‘) quotes.
- Strings are immutable, it means that once created, the contents it has cannot be changed. Although, new strings can be made based on existing ones.
- Indexing can be used to access the characters within a string. For example, if a string named my_String contains the following sequence of characters “Hello”. when I write my_String[0] I can access the first value which is “H”. Similar is the case with the rest of the String.
- Slicing is also another feature of strings in Python. Moreover, it is used to obtain substrings from original strings. For example, a string named my_String[start:end:step]. This string extracts from start to end with an optional step size which can vary according to the requirements. Assuming the string contains the value “Beta Programmer!” and you want to apply slicing on it. You would write ‘print(my_String[5:15])’ and the output will be ‘Programmer’.
- Strings can also include escape characters such as ‘\n’ which is used to print the string on the newline. Also ‘\t’ is used for tab. However, there are also other escape characters as well.
How does String Comparison work in Python and when to Use it?
In Python, string comparison is performed using logical operators ( ‘==’, ‘!=’,'<‘,'<=’,’>’,’>=’) or through methods like ‘str.compare()’ or ‘str.casefold()’. String comparison follows a certain methodology.
- It follows lexicographic order in which strings are compared character by character based on their Unicode points. However, the comparison stops at the first character where the two strings differ.
- In length comparison, if all the characters are identical up to a certain point, the string with a shorter length is considered less.
- String comparison is also used in conditional statements such as ‘if’,’elif’, ‘else’.
- String comparison has a crucial role in sorting a collection of strings, such as lists or dictionaries, to arrange them in a specific order.
- String comparison also helps in searching and filtering based on particular criteria.
- It can also be used for data validation to verify input by the user matches the expected input.
- Databases also rely heavily on string comparisons for filtering data based on string attributes.
Python String Comparison
str.compare():
The compare method compares the strings based on their Unicode points and returns an integer as a result. It returns ‘0’ when the strings are equal. It returns a positive value if the calling string is greater than the argument and vice versa is the case with negative value.
For example:
if str1=”apple”
str2=”watermelon”
print(str1.compare(str2)) #Output: -1(str1 is less than str2)
str.casefold():
The casefold method converts strings to lowercase for case-insensitive comparisons.
For Example:
str1=”World”
str2=”world”
print(str1.casefold()==str2.casefold()) #Output: True
Starts and Ends with Methods:
These methods are used to check whether a string starts or ends with a specified substring or not.
For Example:
sentence=”Hello beautiful World!”
print(sentence.startsWith(“Hello”)) #Output: True
print(sentence.endsWith(“Hello”)) #Output: False
str.find() and str.index() methods:
These methods are used to locate a substring within a string and return its index. find() returns ‘-1’ if the string is not found. However, the index raises an exception if it does not find any value.
For Example:
sentence=”Beta Programmer is wonderful and informative website”
print(sentence.find(“Programmer”)) #Output : 1 (“At first occurrence”)
print(sentence.index(“is”)) #Output: 16 (“At first occurrence”)
str.count():
The count method as seen by its name counts the occurrences of a substring within a string.
For example:
sentence=”Beta Programmer is wonderful and also is informative website”
print(sentence.count(“is”)) #Output: 2
Conclusion
I would say that strings are sequences of characters enclosed in quotes and offer a wide range of methods for manipulation, formatting and comparison. In addition, the Python stripchar method eliminates leading and trailing characters in a string, primarily whitespaces by default.
