Slicing in Strings

Slicing in strings means extracting a part (substring) from the original string. It uses start:stop:step inside square brackets and does not modify the original string.

The start, end & step index are seperated using a colon (:).

Note:

Slicing does not include the character at the stop index. For example, if stop = 5, it returns characters up to index 4.

Syntax:

string_name[start : stop : step]

It returns characters from start index to end index - 1.

Examples of String:

text = "ShikshaSanchar"

1. Slicing with start and stop:

print(text[0:8])

Output:

ShikshaS

Explanation:

  • start = 0, so starts from index 0 ('S').
  • stop = 8, so goes up to index 7 ('S').
  • It excludes index 8.

2. Omitting start (defaults to 0):

print(text[:6])

Output:

Shiksh

Explanation:

  • Start is empty, so it begins from index 0.
  • stop = 6, so ends at index 5 ('h').

3. Omitting stop (goes till end):

print(text[7:])

Output:

anchar

Explanation:

  • start = 7, so starts at index 7 ('a').
  • Stop is empty, so it goes till end of string.

4. Using step (skip characters):

print(text[::2])

Output:

Siksaaha

Explanation:

  • Start and stop are empty → entire string is selected.
  • step = 2 → takes every 2nd character.

5. Full example with start, stop, and step:

print(text[1:10:2])

Output:

ikahS

Explanation:

  • start = 1 → starts at index 1 ('h').
  • stop = 10 → ends at index 9 ('a').
  • step = 2 → takes every 2nd character.

6. Using negative step (reverse string):

print(text[::-1])

Output:

rahcnaSahskihS

Explanation:

  • step = -1 → reverses the string.
  • Starts from end, moves backward to beginning.

Common Mistakes in String Slicing

text = "ShikshaSanchar"

# Mistake 1: start > end with positive step
print(text[10:5])

# Mistake 2: Step is 0
print(text[1:5:0])

# Mistake 3: Index beyond string length
print(text[5:100])

Output:

(empty)
ValueError: slice step cannot be zero
shaSanchar

Explanation:

  • text[10:5] gives an empty string because slicing moves left to right, but here the start index (10) is after the end index (5), so nothing gets selected.
  • text[1:5:0] gives an error as step cannot be zero in slicing.
  • text[5:100] works fine because if the end index is too big, Python automatically stops at the actual end of the string.

Summary of String Slicing:

  • Slicing syntax: string[start : stop : step].
  • If start is empty → begins from start of string.
  • If stop is empty → continues till end.
  • If step is empty → default is 1.
  • Stop index is excluded.
  • Use step = -1 for reverse string.

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