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Hi all,

Am I blind, or what? I can't find any quick way to do the following in
Python:

substring(beginIndex, endIndex) witch returns the substring between
beginIndex and endIndex.

Like:
text = "If someone attacks you with a banana"
print text.substring(0,3)
Should print "If "

I've found absolutely everything else that I expect from a modern
programming language, but none of the modules (not even "string"!)
seems to have what I'm looking for.

Please tell me I'm blind!

Dave

(Dave) writes:

> Hi all,
>
> Am I blind, or what? I can't find any quick way to do the following in
> Python:
>
> substring(beginIndex, endIndex) witch returns the substring between
> beginIndex and endIndex.
>
> Like:
> text = "If someone attacks you with a banana"
> print text.substring(0,3)
> Should print "If "
>
> I've found absolutely everything else that I expect from a modern
> programming language, but none of the modules (not even "string"!)
> seems to have what I'm looking for.
>
> Please tell me I'm blind!

Well, you're just not looking in the right place:

>>> text = "If someone attacks you with a banana"
>>> text[0:3]
'If '

I'm pretty sure this is in the tutorial -- the key word you're looking
for is "slice".

Cheers,
mwh

--
[2. More type system hacking --- text/plain; type-argh.diff]
-- csr on sbcl-devel

Dave wrote:

> Am I blind, or what? I can't find any quick way to do the following in
> Python:
>
> substring(beginIndex, endIndex) witch returns the substring between
> beginIndex and endIndex.
>
> Like:
> text = "If someone attacks you with a banana"
> print text.substring(0,3)
> Should print "If "

You're not blind but you've overlooked string slicing:

C:\> python
Python 2.3 (#46, Jul 29 2003, 18:54:32) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> text = "If someone attacks you with a banana"
>>> print text[0:3]
If
>>> print text[3:10]
someone
>>> print text[-6:]
banana
>>> print text[::-1]
ananab a htiw uoy skcatta enoemos fI


more info here: http://www.python.org/doc/current/ref/slicings.html

--Irmen

> You are You couldn't find it in the documentation for the modules
because
> it's a base operator on the string itself:

Surely a lesson to be learned there?

I am still a relative newcomer and regularly find myself stumbling round the
tutorial to find the answers that are too easy for the library reference.

Christopher Boomer.