Built-in Types¶

Bitwise Operations on Integer Types¶

Bitwise operations only make sense for integers. The result of bitwise operations is calculated as though carried out in two’s complement with an infinite number of sign bits.

The priorities of the binary bitwise operations are all lower than the numeric operations and higher than the comparisons; the unary operation ~ has the same priority as the other unary numeric operations (+ and -).

This table lists the bitwise operations sorted in ascending priority:

Notes:

1. Negative shift counts are illegal and cause a ValueError to be raised.

2. A left shift by n bits is equivalent to multiplication by pow(2, n).

3. A right shift by n bits is equivalent to floor division by pow(2, n).

4. Performing these calculations with at least one extra sign extension bit in a finite two’s complement representation (a working bit-width of 1 + max(x.bit_length(), y.bit_length()) or more) is sufficient to get the same result as if there were an infinite number of sign bits.

Additional Methods on Integer Types¶

The int type implements the numbers.Integral abstract base class. In addition, it provides a few more methods:

int.bit_length()¶

Return the number of bits necessary to represent an integer in binary, excluding the sign and leading zeros:

>>> n = -37
>>> bin(n)
'-0b100101'
>>> n.bit_length()
6

More precisely, if x is nonzero, then x.bit_length() is the unique positive integer k such that 2**(k-1) <= abs(x) < 2**k. Equivalently, when abs(x) is small enough to have a correctly rounded logarithm, then k = 1 + int(log(abs(x), 2)). If x is zero, then x.bit_length() returns 0.

Equivalent to:

def bit_length(self):
    s = bin(self)       # binary representation:  bin(-37) --> '-0b100101'
    s = s.lstrip('-0b') # remove leading zeros and minus sign
    return len(s)       # len('100101') --> 6

Added in version 3.1.

int.bit_count()¶

Return the number of ones in the binary representation of the absolute value of the integer. This is also known as the population count. Example:

>>> n = 19
>>> bin(n)
'0b10011'
>>> n.bit_count()
3
>>> (-n).bit_count()
3

Equivalent to:

def bit_count(self):
    return bin(self).count("1")

Added in version 3.10.

int.to_bytes(length=1, byteorder='big', *, signed=False)¶

Return an array of bytes representing an integer.

>>> (1024).to_bytes(2, byteorder='big')
b'\x04\x00'
>>> (1024).to_bytes(10, byteorder='big')
b'\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x04\x00'
>>> (-1024).to_bytes(10, byteorder='big', signed=True)
b'\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfc\x00'
>>> x = 1000
>>> x.to_bytes((x.bit_length() + 7) // 8, byteorder='little')
b'\xe8\x03'

The integer is represented using length bytes, and defaults to 1. An OverflowError is raised if the integer is not representable with the given number of bytes.

The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer, and defaults to "big". If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the byte array. If byteorder is "little", the most significant byte is at the end of the byte array.

The signed argument determines whether two’s complement is used to represent the integer. If signed is False and a negative integer is given, an OverflowError is raised. The default value for signed is False.

The default values can be used to conveniently turn an integer into a single byte object:

>>> (65).to_bytes()
b'A'

However, when using the default arguments, don’t try to convert a value greater than 255 or you’ll get an OverflowError.

Equivalent to:

def to_bytes(n, length=1, byteorder='big', signed=False):
    if byteorder == 'little':
        order = range(length)
    elif byteorder == 'big':
        order = reversed(range(length))
    else:
        raise ValueError("byteorder must be either 'little' or 'big'")

    return bytes((n >> i*8) & 0xff for i in order)

Added in version 3.2.

Changed in version 3.11: Added default argument values for length and byteorder.

classmethod int.from_bytes(bytes, byteorder='big', *, signed=False)¶

Return the integer represented by the given array of bytes.

>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x00\x10', byteorder='big')
16
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x00\x10', byteorder='little')
4096
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\xfc\x00', byteorder='big', signed=True)
-1024
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\xfc\x00', byteorder='big', signed=False)
64512
>>> int.from_bytes([255, 0, 0], byteorder='big')
16711680

The argument bytes must either be a bytes-like object or an iterable producing bytes.

The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer, and defaults to "big". If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the byte array. If byteorder is "little", the most significant byte is at the end of the byte array. To request the native byte order of the host system, use sys.byteorder as the byte order value.

The signed argument indicates whether two’s complement is used to represent the integer.

Equivalent to:

def from_bytes(bytes, byteorder='big', signed=False):
    if byteorder == 'little':
        little_ordered = list(bytes)
    elif byteorder == 'big':
        little_ordered = list(reversed(bytes))
    else:
        raise ValueError("byteorder must be either 'little' or 'big'")

    n = sum(b << i*8 for i, b in enumerate(little_ordered))
    if signed and little_ordered and (little_ordered[-1] & 0x80):
        n -= 1 << 8*len(little_ordered)

    return n

Added in version 3.2.

Changed in version 3.11: Added default argument value for byteorder.

int.as_integer_ratio()¶

Return a pair of integers whose ratio is equal to the original integer and has a positive denominator. The integer ratio of integers (whole numbers) is always the integer as the numerator and 1 as the denominator.

Added in version 3.8.

int.is_integer()¶

Returns True. Exists for duck type compatibility with float.is_integer().

Added in version 3.12.

Additional Methods on Float¶

The float type implements the numbers.Real abstract base class. float also has the following additional methods.

classmethod float.from_number(x)¶

Class method to return a floating-point number constructed from a number x.

If the argument is an integer or a floating-point number, a floating-point number with the same value (within Python’s floating-point precision) is returned. If the argument is outside the range of a Python float, an OverflowError will be raised.

For a general Python object x, float.from_number(x) delegates to x.__float__(). If __float__() is not defined then it falls back to __index__().

Added in version 3.14.

float.as_integer_ratio()¶

Return a pair of integers whose ratio is exactly equal to the original float. The ratio is in lowest terms and has a positive denominator. Raises OverflowError on infinities and a ValueError on NaNs.

float.is_integer()¶

Return True if the float instance is finite with integral value, and False otherwise:

>>> (-2.0).is_integer()
True
>>> (3.2).is_integer()
False

Two methods support conversion to and from hexadecimal strings. Since Python’s floats are stored internally as binary numbers, converting a float to or from a decimal string usually involves a small rounding error. In contrast, hexadecimal strings allow exact representation and specification of floating-point numbers. This can be useful when debugging, and in numerical work.

float.hex()¶

Return a representation of a floating-point number as a hexadecimal string. For finite floating-point numbers, this representation will always include a leading 0x and a trailing p and exponent.

classmethod float.fromhex(s)¶

Class method to return the float represented by a hexadecimal string s. The string s may have leading and trailing whitespace.

Note that float.hex() is an instance method, while float.fromhex() is a class method.

A hexadecimal string takes the form:

[sign] ['0x'] integer ['.' fraction] ['p' exponent]

where the optional sign may by either + or -, integer and fraction are strings of hexadecimal digits, and exponent is a decimal integer with an optional leading sign. Case is not significant, and there must be at least one hexadecimal digit in either the integer or the fraction. This syntax is similar to the syntax specified in section 6.4.4.2 of the C99 standard, and also to the syntax used in Java 1.5 onwards. In particular, the output of float.hex() is usable as a hexadecimal floating-point literal in C or Java code, and hexadecimal strings produced by C’s %a format character or Java’s Double.toHexString are accepted by float.fromhex().

Note that the exponent is written in decimal rather than hexadecimal, and that it gives the power of 2 by which to multiply the coefficient. For example, the hexadecimal string 0x3.a7p10 represents the floating-point number (3 + 10./16 + 7./16**2) * 2.0**10, or 3740.0:

>>> float.fromhex('0x3.a7p10')
3740.0

Applying the reverse conversion to 3740.0 gives a different hexadecimal string representing the same number:

>>> float.hex(3740.0)
'0x1.d380000000000p+11'

Additional Methods on Complex¶

The complex type implements the numbers.Complex abstract base class. complex also has the following additional methods.

classmethod complex.from_number(x)¶

Class method to convert a number to a complex number.

For a general Python object x, complex.from_number(x) delegates to x.__complex__(). If __complex__() is not defined then it falls back to __float__(). If __float__() is not defined then it falls back to __index__().

Added in version 3.14.

Hashing of numeric types¶

For numbers x and y, possibly of different types, it’s a requirement that hash(x) == hash(y) whenever x == y (see the __hash__() method documentation for more details). For ease of implementation and efficiency across a variety of numeric types (including int, float, decimal.Decimal and fractions.Fraction) Python’s hash for numeric types is based on a single mathematical function that’s defined for any rational number, and hence applies to all instances of int and fractions.Fraction, and all finite instances of float and decimal.Decimal. Essentially, this function is given by reduction modulo P for a fixed prime P. The value of P is made available to Python as the modulus attribute of sys.hash_info.

Here are the rules in detail:

• If x = m / n is a nonnegative rational number and n is not divisible by P, define hash(x) as m * invmod(n, P) % P, where invmod(n, P) gives the inverse of n modulo P.

• If x = m / n is a nonnegative rational number and n is divisible by P (but m is not) then n has no inverse modulo P and the rule above doesn’t apply; in this case define hash(x) to be the constant value sys.hash_info.inf.

• If x = m / n is a negative rational number define hash(x) as -hash(-x). If the resulting hash is -1, replace it with -2.

• The particular values sys.hash_info.inf and -sys.hash_info.inf are used as hash values for positive infinity or negative infinity (respectively).

• For a complex number z, the hash values of the real and imaginary parts are combined by computing hash(z.real) + sys.hash_info.imag * hash(z.imag), reduced modulo 2**sys.hash_info.width so that it lies in range(-2**(sys.hash_info.width - 1), 2**(sys.hash_info.width - 1)). Again, if the result is -1, it’s replaced with -2.

To clarify the above rules, here’s some example Python code, equivalent to the built-in hash, for computing the hash of a rational number, float, or complex:

import sys, math

def hash_fraction(m, n):
    """Compute the hash of a rational number m / n.

    Assumes m and n are integers, with n positive.
    Equivalent to hash(fractions.Fraction(m, n)).

    """
    P = sys.hash_info.modulus
    # Remove common factors of P.  (Unnecessary if m and n already coprime.)
    while m % P == n % P == 0:
        m, n = m // P, n // P

    if n % P == 0:
        hash_value = sys.hash_info.inf
    else:
        # Fermat's Little Theorem: pow(n, P-1, P) is 1, so
        # pow(n, P-2, P) gives the inverse of n modulo P.
        hash_value = (abs(m) % P) * pow(n, P - 2, P) % P
    if m < 0:
        hash_value = -hash_value
    if hash_value == -1:
        hash_value = -2
    return hash_value

def hash_float(x):
    """Compute the hash of a float x."""

    if math.isnan(x):
        return object.__hash__(x)
    elif math.isinf(x):
        return sys.hash_info.inf if x > 0 else -sys.hash_info.inf
    else:
        return hash_fraction(*x.as_integer_ratio())

def hash_complex(z):
    """Compute the hash of a complex number z."""

    hash_value = hash_float(z.real) + sys.hash_info.imag * hash_float(z.imag)
    # do a signed reduction modulo 2**sys.hash_info.width
    M = 2**(sys.hash_info.width - 1)
    hash_value = (hash_value & (M - 1)) - (hash_value & M)
    if hash_value == -1:
        hash_value = -2
    return hash_value

Generator Types¶

Python’s generators provide a convenient way to implement the iterator protocol. If a container object’s __iter__() method is implemented as a generator, it will automatically return an iterator object (technically, a generator object) supplying the __iter__() and __next__() methods. More information about generators can be found in the documentation for the yield expression.

Common Sequence Operations¶

The operations in the following table are supported by most sequence types, both mutable and immutable. The collections.abc.Sequence ABC is provided to make it easier to correctly implement these operations on custom sequence types.

This table lists the sequence operations sorted in ascending priority. In the table, s and t are sequences of the same type, n, i, j and k are integers and x is an arbitrary object that meets any type and value restrictions imposed by s.

The in and not in operations have the same priorities as the comparison operations. The + (concatenation) and * (repetition) operations have the same priority as the corresponding numeric operations. [3]

Sequences of the same type also support comparisons. In particular, tuples and lists are compared lexicographically by comparing corresponding elements. This means that to compare equal, every element must compare equal and the two sequences must be of the same type and have the same length. (For full details see Comparisons in the language reference.)

Forward and reversed iterators over mutable sequences access values using an index. That index will continue to march forward (or backward) even if the underlying sequence is mutated. The iterator terminates only when an IndexError or a StopIteration is encountered (or when the index drops below zero).

Notes:

1. While the in and not in operations are used only for simple containment testing in the general case, some specialised sequences (such as str, bytes and bytearray) also use them for subsequence testing:

   >>> "gg" in "eggs"
   True
   

2. Values of n less than 0 are treated as 0 (which yields an empty sequence of the same type as s). Note that items in the sequence s are not copied; they are referenced multiple times. This often haunts new Python programmers; consider:

   >>> lists = [[]] * 3
   >>> lists
   [[], [], []]
   >>> lists[0].append(3)
   >>> lists
   [[3], [3], [3]]
   

   What has happened is that [[]] is a one-element list containing an empty list, so all three elements of [[]] * 3 are references to this single empty list. Modifying any of the elements of lists modifies this single list. You can create a list of different lists this way:

   >>> lists = [[] for i in range(3)]
   >>> lists[0].append(3)
   >>> lists[1].append(5)
   >>> lists[2].append(7)
   >>> lists
   [[3], [5], [7]]
   

   Further explanation is available in the FAQ entry How do I create a multidimensional list?.

3. If i or j is negative, the index is relative to the end of sequence s: len(s) + i or len(s) + j is substituted. But note that -0 is still 0.

4. The slice of s from i to j is defined as the sequence of items with index k such that i <= k < j.

   • If i is omitted or None, use 0.

   • If j is omitted or None, use len(s).

   • If i or j is less than -len(s), use 0.

   • If i or j is greater than len(s), use len(s).

   • If i is greater than or equal to j, the slice is empty.

5. The slice of s from i to j with step k is defined as the sequence of items with index x = i + n*k such that 0 <= n < (j-i)/k. In other words, the indices are i, i+k, i+2*k, i+3*k and so on, stopping when j is reached (but never including j). When k is positive, i and j are reduced to len(s) if they are greater. When k is negative, i and j are reduced to len(s) - 1 if they are greater. If i or j are omitted or None, they become “end” values (which end depends on the sign of k). Note, k cannot be zero. If k is None, it is treated like 1.

6. Concatenating immutable sequences always results in a new object. This means that building up a sequence by repeated concatenation will have a quadratic runtime cost in the total sequence length. To get a linear runtime cost, you must switch to one of the alternatives below:

   • if concatenating str objects, you can build a list and use str.join() at the end or else write to an io.StringIO instance and retrieve its value when complete

   • if concatenating bytes objects, you can similarly use bytes.join() or io.BytesIO, or you can do in-place concatenation with a bytearray object. bytearray objects are mutable and have an efficient overallocation mechanism

   • if concatenating tuple objects, extend a list instead

   • for other types, investigate the relevant class documentation

7. Some sequence types (such as range) only support item sequences that follow specific patterns, and hence don’t support sequence concatenation or repetition.

8. An IndexError is raised if i is outside the sequence range.

Sequence Methods

Sequence types also support the following methods:

sequence.count(value, /)¶

Return the total number of occurrences of value in sequence.

sequence.index(value[, start[, stop]])¶

Return the index of the first occurrence of value in sequence.

Raises ValueError if value is not found in sequence.

The start or stop arguments allow for efficient searching of subsections of the sequence, beginning at start and ending at stop. This is roughly equivalent to start + sequence[start:stop].index(value), only without copying any data.

Caution

Not all sequence types support passing the start and stop arguments.

Immutable Sequence Types¶

The only operation that immutable sequence types generally implement that is not also implemented by mutable sequence types is support for the hash() built-in.

This support allows immutable sequences, such as tuple instances, to be used as dict keys and stored in set and frozenset instances.

Attempting to hash an immutable sequence that contains unhashable values will result in TypeError.

Mutable Sequence Types¶

The operations in the following table are defined on mutable sequence types. The collections.abc.MutableSequence ABC is provided to make it easier to correctly implement these operations on custom sequence types.

In the table s is an instance of a mutable sequence type, t is any iterable object and x is an arbitrary object that meets any type and value restrictions imposed by s (for example, bytearray only accepts integers that meet the value restriction 0 <= x <= 255).

Notes:

1. If k is not equal to 1, t must have the same length as the slice it is replacing.

2. The value n is an integer, or an object implementing __index__(). Zero and negative values of n clear the sequence. Items in the sequence are not copied; they are referenced multiple times, as explained for s * n under Common Sequence Operations.

Mutable Sequence Methods

Mutable sequence types also support the following methods:

sequence.append(value, /)¶

Append value to the end of the sequence. This is equivalent to writing seq[len(seq):len(seq)] = [value].

sequence.clear()¶

Added in version 3.3.

Remove all items from sequence. This is equivalent to writing del sequence[:].

sequence.copy()¶

Added in version 3.3.

Create a shallow copy of sequence. This is equivalent to writing sequence[:].

Hint

The copy() method is not part of the MutableSequence ABC, but most concrete mutable sequence types provide it.

sequence.extend(iterable, /)¶

Extend sequence with the contents of iterable. For the most part, this is the same as writing seq[len(seq):len(seq)] = iterable.

sequence.insert(index, value, /)¶

Insert value into sequence at the given index. This is equivalent to writing sequence[index:index] = [value].

sequence.pop(index=-1, /)¶

Retrieve the item at index and also removes it from sequence. By default, the last item in sequence is removed and returned.

sequence.remove(value, /)¶

Remove the first item from sequence where sequence[i] == value.

Raises ValueError if value is not found in sequence.

sequence.reverse()¶

Reverse the items of sequence in place. This method maintains economy of space when reversing a large sequence. To remind users that it operates by side-effect, it returns None.

Lists¶

Lists are mutable sequences, typically used to store collections of homogeneous items (where the precise degree of similarity will vary by application).

class list(iterable=(), /)¶

Lists may be constructed in several ways:

• Using a pair of square brackets to denote the empty list: []

• Using square brackets, separating items with commas: [a], [a, b, c]

• Using a list comprehension: [x for x in iterable]

• Using the type constructor: list() or list(iterable)

The constructor builds a list whose items are the same and in the same order as iterable’s items. iterable may be either a sequence, a container that supports iteration, or an iterator object. If iterable is already a list, a copy is made and returned, similar to iterable[:]. For example, list('abc') returns ['a', 'b', 'c'] and list( (1, 2, 3) ) returns [1, 2, 3]. If no argument is given, the constructor creates a new empty list, [].

Many other operations also produce lists, including the sorted() built-in.

Lists implement all of the common and mutable sequence operations. Lists also provide the following additional method:

sort(*, key=None, reverse=False)¶

This method sorts the list in place, using only < comparisons between items. Exceptions are not suppressed - if any comparison operations fail, the entire sort operation will fail (and the list will likely be left in a partially modified state).

sort() accepts two arguments that can only be passed by keyword (keyword-only arguments):

key specifies a function of one argument that is used to extract a comparison key from each list element (for example, key=str.lower). The key corresponding to each item in the list is calculated once and then used for the entire sorting process. The default value of None means that list items are sorted directly without calculating a separate key value.

The functools.cmp_to_key() utility is available to convert a 2.x style cmp function to a key function.

reverse is a boolean value. If set to True, then the list elements are sorted as if each comparison were reversed.

This method modifies the sequence in place for economy of space when sorting a large sequence. To remind users that it operates by side effect, it does not return the sorted sequence (use sorted() to explicitly request a new sorted list instance).

The sort() method is guaranteed to be stable. A sort is stable if it guarantees not to change the relative order of elements that compare equal — this is helpful for sorting in multiple passes (for example, sort by department, then by salary grade).

For sorting examples and a brief sorting tutorial, see Sorting Techniques.

CPython implementation detail: While a list is being sorted, the effect of attempting to mutate, or even inspect, the list is undefined. The C implementation of Python makes the list appear empty for the duration, and raises ValueError if it can detect that the list has been mutated during a sort.

Tuples¶

Tuples are immutable sequences, typically used to store collections of heterogeneous data (such as the 2-tuples produced by the enumerate() built-in). Tuples are also used for cases where an immutable sequence of homogeneous data is needed (such as allowing storage in a set or dict instance).

class tuple(iterable=(), /)¶

Tuples may be constructed in a number of ways:

• Using a pair of parentheses to denote the empty tuple: ()

• Using a trailing comma for a singleton tuple: a, or (a,)

• Separating items with commas: a, b, c or (a, b, c)

• Using the tuple() built-in: tuple() or tuple(iterable)

The constructor builds a tuple whose items are the same and in the same order as iterable’s items. iterable may be either a sequence, a container that supports iteration, or an iterator object. If iterable is already a tuple, it is returned unchanged. For example, tuple('abc') returns ('a', 'b', 'c') and tuple( [1, 2, 3] ) returns (1, 2, 3). If no argument is given, the constructor creates a new empty tuple, ().

Note that it is actually the comma which makes a tuple, not the parentheses. The parentheses are optional, except in the empty tuple case, or when they are needed to avoid syntactic ambiguity. For example, f(a, b, c) is a function call with three arguments, while f((a, b, c)) is a function call with a 3-tuple as the sole argument.

Tuples implement all of the common sequence operations.

For heterogeneous collections of data where access by name is clearer than access by index, collections.namedtuple() may be a more appropriate choice than a simple tuple object.

Ranges¶

The range type represents an immutable sequence of numbers and is commonly used for looping a specific number of times in for loops.

class range(stop, /)¶

class range(start, stop, step=1, /)

The arguments to the range constructor must be integers (either built-in int or any object that implements the __index__() special method). If the step argument is omitted, it defaults to 1. If the start argument is omitted, it defaults to 0. If step is zero, ValueError is raised.

For a positive step, the contents of a range r are determined by the formula r[i] = start + step*i where i >= 0 and r[i] < stop.

For a negative step, the contents of the range are still determined by the formula r[i] = start + step*i, but the constraints are i >= 0 and r[i] > stop.

A range object will be empty if r[0] does not meet the value constraint. Ranges do support negative indices, but these are interpreted as indexing from the end of the sequence determined by the positive indices.

Ranges containing absolute values larger than sys.maxsize are permitted but some features (such as len()) may raise OverflowError.

Range examples:

>>> list(range(10))
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
>>> list(range(1, 11))
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>>> list(range(0, 30, 5))
[0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25]
>>> list(range(0, 10, 3))
[0, 3, 6, 9]
>>> list(range(0, -10, -1))
[0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9]
>>> list(range(0))
[]
>>> list(range(1, 0))
[]

Ranges implement all of the common sequence operations except concatenation and repetition (due to the fact that range objects can only represent sequences that follow a strict pattern and repetition and concatenation will usually violate that pattern).

start¶

The value of the start parameter (or 0 if the parameter was not supplied)

stop¶

The value of the stop parameter

step¶

The value of the step parameter (or 1 if the parameter was not supplied)

The advantage of the range type over a regular list or tuple is that a range object will always take the same (small) amount of memory, no matter the size of the range it represents (as it only stores the start, stop and step values, calculating individual items and subranges as needed).

Range objects implement the collections.abc.Sequence ABC, and provide features such as containment tests, element index lookup, slicing and support for negative indices (see Sequence Types — list, tuple, range):

>>> r = range(0, 20, 2)
>>> r
range(0, 20, 2)
>>> 11 in r
False
>>> 10 in r
True
>>> r.index(10)
5
>>> r[5]
10
>>> r[:5]
range(0, 10, 2)
>>> r[-1]
18

Testing range objects for equality with == and != compares them as sequences. That is, two range objects are considered equal if they represent the same sequence of values. (Note that two range objects that compare equal might have different start, stop and step attributes, for example range(0) == range(2, 1, 3) or range(0, 3, 2) == range(0, 4, 2).)

String Methods¶

Strings implement all of the common sequence operations, along with the additional methods described below.

Strings also support two styles of string formatting, one providing a large degree of flexibility and customization (see str.format(), Format string syntax and Custom string formatting) and the other based on C printf style formatting that handles a narrower range of types and is slightly harder to use correctly, but is often faster for the cases it can handle (printf-style String Formatting).

The Text Processing Services section of the standard library covers a number of other modules that provide various text related utilities (including regular expression support in the re module).

str.capitalize()¶

Return a copy of the string with its first character capitalized and the rest lowercased.

Changed in version 3.8: The first character is now put into titlecase rather than uppercase. This means that characters like digraphs will only have their first letter capitalized, instead of the full character.

str.casefold()¶

Return a casefolded copy of the string. Casefolded strings may be used for caseless matching.

Casefolding is similar to lowercasing but more aggressive because it is intended to remove all case distinctions in a string. For example, the German lowercase letter 'ß' is equivalent to "ss". Since it is already lowercase, lower() would do nothing to 'ß'; casefold() converts it to "ss". For example:

>>> 'straße'.lower()
'straße'
>>> 'straße'.casefold()
'strasse'

The casefolding algorithm is described in section 3.13 ‘Default Case Folding’ of the Unicode Standard.

Added in version 3.3.

str.center(width, fillchar=' ', /)¶

Return centered in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is an ASCII space). The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s). For example:

>>> 'Python'.center(10)
'  Python  '
>>> 'Python'.center(10, '-')
'--Python--'
>>> 'Python'.center(4)
'Python'

str.count(sub[, start[, end]])¶

Return the number of non-overlapping occurrences of substring sub in the range [start, end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation.

If sub is empty, returns the number of empty strings between characters which is the length of the string plus one. For example:

>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.count('spam')
3
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.count('spam', 5)
2
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.count('spam', 5, 10)
1
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.count('eggs')
0
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.count('')
17

str.encode(encoding='utf-8', errors='strict')¶

Return the string encoded to bytes.

encoding defaults to 'utf-8'; see Standard Encodings for possible values.

errors controls how encoding errors are handled. If 'strict' (the default), a UnicodeError exception is raised. Other possible values are 'ignore', 'replace', 'xmlcharrefreplace', 'backslashreplace' and any other name registered via codecs.register_error(). See Error Handlers for details.

For performance reasons, the value of errors is not checked for validity unless an encoding error actually occurs, Python Development Mode is enabled or a debug build is used. For example:

>>> encoded_str_to_bytes = 'Python'.encode()
>>> type(encoded_str_to_bytes)
<class 'bytes'>
>>> encoded_str_to_bytes
b'Python'

Changed in version 3.1: Added support for keyword arguments.

Changed in version 3.9: The value of the errors argument is now checked in Python Development Mode and in debug mode.

str.endswith(suffix[, start[, end]])¶

Return True if the string ends with the specified suffix, otherwise return False. suffix can also be a tuple of suffixes to look for. With optional start, test beginning at that position. With optional end, stop comparing at that position. Using start and end is equivalent to str[start:end].endswith(suffix). For example:

>>> 'Python'.endswith('on')
True
>>> 'a tuple of suffixes'.endswith(('at', 'in'))
False
>>> 'a tuple of suffixes'.endswith(('at', 'es'))
True
>>> 'Python is amazing'.endswith('is', 0, 9)
True

See also startswith() and removesuffix().

str.expandtabs(tabsize=8)¶

Return a copy of the string where all tab characters are replaced by one or more spaces, depending on the current column and the given tab size. Tab positions occur every tabsize characters (default is 8, giving tab positions at columns 0, 8, 16 and so on). To expand the string, the current column is set to zero and the string is examined character by character. If the character is a tab (\t), one or more space characters are inserted in the result until the current column is equal to the next tab position. (The tab character itself is not copied.) If the character is a newline (\n) or return (\r), it is copied and the current column is reset to zero. Any other character is copied unchanged and the current column is incremented by one regardless of how the character is represented when printed. For example:

>>> '01\t012\t0123\t01234'.expandtabs()
'01      012     0123    01234'
>>> '01\t012\t0123\t01234'.expandtabs(4)
'01  012 0123    01234'
>>> print('01\t012\n0123\t01234'.expandtabs(4))
01  012
0123    01234

str.find(sub[, start[, end]])¶

Return the lowest index in the string where substring sub is found within the slice s[start:end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Return -1 if sub is not found. For example:

>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.find('sp')
0
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.find('sp', 5)
6

See also rfind() and index().

Note

The find() method should be used only if you need to know the position of sub. To check if sub is a substring or not, use the in operator:

>>> 'Py' in 'Python'
True

str.format(*args, **kwargs)¶

Perform a string formatting operation. The string on which this method is called can contain literal text or replacement fields delimited by braces {}. Each replacement field contains either the numeric index of a positional argument, or the name of a keyword argument. Returns a copy of the string where each replacement field is replaced with the string value of the corresponding argument. For example:

>>> "The sum of 1 + 2 is {0}".format(1+2)
'The sum of 1 + 2 is 3'
>>> "The sum of {a} + {b} is {answer}".format(answer=1+2, a=1, b=2)
'The sum of 1 + 2 is 3'
>>> "{1} expects the {0} Inquisition!".format("Spanish", "Nobody")
'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!'

See Format string syntax for a description of the various formatting options that can be specified in format strings.

Note

When formatting a number (int, float, complex, decimal.Decimal and subclasses) with the n type (ex: '{:n}'.format(1234)), the function temporarily sets the LC_CTYPE locale to the LC_NUMERIC locale to decode decimal_point and thousands_sep fields of localeconv() if they are non-ASCII or longer than 1 byte, and the LC_NUMERIC locale is different than the LC_CTYPE locale. This temporary change affects other threads.

Changed in version 3.7: When formatting a number with the n type, the function sets temporarily the LC_CTYPE locale to the LC_NUMERIC locale in some cases.

str.format_map(mapping, /)¶

Similar to str.format(**mapping), except that mapping is used directly and not copied to a dict. This is useful if for example mapping is a dict subclass:

>>> class Default(dict):
...     def __missing__(self, key):
...         return key
...
>>> '{name} was born in {country}'.format_map(Default(name='Guido'))
'Guido was born in country'

Added in version 3.2.

str.index(sub[, start[, end]])¶

Like find(), but raise ValueError when the substring is not found. For example:

>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.index('spam')
0
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.index('eggs')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<python-input-0>", line 1, in <module>
    'spam, spam, spam'.index('eggs')
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^
ValueError: substring not found

See also rindex().

str.isalnum()¶

Return True if all characters in the string are alphanumeric and there is at least one character, False otherwise. A character c is alphanumeric if one of the following returns True: c.isalpha(), c.isdecimal(), c.isdigit(), or c.isnumeric(). For example:

>>> 'abc123'.isalnum()
True
>>> 'abc123!@#'.isalnum()
False
>>> ''.isalnum()
False
>>> ' '.isalnum()
False

str.isalpha()¶

Return True if all characters in the string are alphabetic and there is at least one character, False otherwise. Alphabetic characters are those characters defined in the Unicode character database as “Letter”, i.e., those with general category property being one of “Lm”, “Lt”, “Lu”, “Ll”, or “Lo”. Note that this is different from the Alphabetic property defined in the section 4.10 ‘Letters, Alphabetic, and Ideographic’ of the Unicode Standard. For example:

>>> 'Letters and spaces'.isalpha()
False
>>> 'LettersOnly'.isalpha()
True
>>> 'µ'.isalpha()  # non-ASCII characters can be considered alphabetical too
True

See Unicode Properties.

str.isascii()¶

Return True if the string is empty or all characters in the string are ASCII, False otherwise. ASCII characters have code points in the range U+0000-U+007F. For example:

>>> 'ASCII characters'.isascii()
True
>>> 'µ'.isascii()
False

Added in version 3.7.

str.isdecimal()¶

Return True if all characters in the string are decimal characters and there is at least one character, False otherwise. Decimal characters are those that can be used to form numbers in base 10, such as U+0660, ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ZERO. Formally a decimal character is a character in the Unicode General Category “Nd”. For example:

>>> '0123456789'.isdecimal()
True
>>> '٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩'.isdecimal()  # Arabic-Indic digits zero to nine
True
>>> 'alphabetic'.isdecimal()
False

str.isdigit()¶

Return True if all characters in the string are digits and there is at least one character, False otherwise. Digits include decimal characters and digits that need special handling, such as the compatibility superscript digits. This covers digits which cannot be used to form numbers in base 10, like the Kharosthi numbers. Formally, a digit is a character that has the property value Numeric_Type=Digit or Numeric_Type=Decimal.

str.isidentifier()¶

Return True if the string is a valid identifier according to the language definition, section Names (identifiers and keywords).

keyword.iskeyword() can be used to test whether string s is a reserved identifier, such as def and class.

Example:

>>> from keyword import iskeyword

>>> 'hello'.isidentifier(), iskeyword('hello')
(True, False)
>>> 'def'.isidentifier(), iskeyword('def')
(True, True)

str.islower()¶

Return True if all cased characters [4] in the string are lowercase and there is at least one cased character, False otherwise.

str.isnumeric()¶

Return True if all characters in the string are numeric characters, and there is at least one character, False otherwise. Numeric characters include digit characters, and all characters that have the Unicode numeric value property, e.g. U+2155, VULGAR FRACTION ONE FIFTH. Formally, numeric characters are those with the property value Numeric_Type=Digit, Numeric_Type=Decimal or Numeric_Type=Numeric. For example:

>>> '0123456789'.isnumeric()
True
>>> '٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩'.isnumeric()  # Arabic-indic digit zero to nine
True
>>> '⅕'.isnumeric()  # Vulgar fraction one fifth
True
>>> '²'.isdecimal(), '²'.isdigit(),  '²'.isnumeric()
(False, True, True)

See also isdecimal() and isdigit(). Numeric characters are a superset of decimal numbers.

str.isprintable()¶

Return True if all characters in the string are printable, False if it contains at least one non-printable character.

Here “printable” means the character is suitable for repr() to use in its output; “non-printable” means that repr() on built-in types will hex-escape the character. It has no bearing on the handling of strings written to sys.stdout or sys.stderr.

The printable characters are those which in the Unicode character database (see unicodedata) have a general category in group Letter, Mark, Number, Punctuation, or Symbol (L, M, N, P, or S); plus the ASCII space 0x20. Nonprintable characters are those in group Separator or Other (Z or C), except the ASCII space.

For example:

>>> ''.isprintable(), ' '.isprintable()
(True, True)
>>> '\t'.isprintable(), '\n'.isprintable()
(False, False)

See also isspace().

str.isspace()¶

Return True if there are only whitespace characters in the string and there is at least one character, False otherwise.

For example:

>>> ''.isspace()
False
>>> ' '.isspace()
True
>>> '\t\n'.isspace() # TAB and BREAK LINE
True
>>> '\u3000'.isspace() # IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE
True

A character is whitespace if in the Unicode character database (see unicodedata), either its general category is Zs (“Separator, space”), or its bidirectional class is one of WS, B, or S.

See also isprintable().

str.istitle()¶

Return True if the string is a titlecased string and there is at least one character, for example uppercase characters may only follow uncased characters and lowercase characters only cased ones. Return False otherwise.

For example:

>>> 'Spam, Spam, Spam'.istitle()
True
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.istitle()
False
>>> 'SPAM, SPAM, SPAM'.istitle()
False

See also title().

str.isupper()¶

Return True if all cased characters [4] in the string are uppercase and there is at least one cased character, False otherwise.

>>> 'BANANA'.isupper()
True
>>> 'banana'.isupper()
False
>>> 'baNana'.isupper()
False
>>> ' '.isupper()
False

str.join(iterable, /)¶

Return a string which is the concatenation of the strings in iterable. A TypeError will be raised if there are any non-string values in iterable, including bytes objects. The separator between elements is the string providing this method. For example:

>>> ', '.join(['spam', 'spam', 'spam'])
'spam, spam, spam'
>>> '-'.join('Python')
'P-y-t-h-o-n'

See also split().

str.ljust(width, fillchar=' ', /)¶

Return the string left justified in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is an ASCII space). The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

For example:

>>> 'Python'.ljust(10)
'Python    '
>>> 'Python'.ljust(10, '.')
'Python....'
>>> 'Monty Python'.ljust(10, '.')
'Monty Python'

See also rjust().

str.lower()¶

Return a copy of the string with all the cased characters [4] converted to lowercase. For example:

>>> 'Lower Method Example'.lower()
'lower method example'

The lowercasing algorithm used is described in section 3.13 ‘Default Case Folding’ of the Unicode Standard.

str.lstrip(chars=None, /)¶

Return a copy of the string with leading characters removed. The chars argument is a string specifying the set of characters to be removed. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing whitespace. The chars argument is not a prefix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> '   spacious   '.lstrip()
'spacious   '
>>> 'www.example.com'.lstrip('cmowz.')
'example.com'

See str.removeprefix() for a method that will remove a single prefix string rather than all of a set of characters. For example:

>>> 'Arthur: three!'.lstrip('Arthur: ')
'ee!'
>>> 'Arthur: three!'.removeprefix('Arthur: ')
'three!'

static str.maketrans(dict, /)¶

static str.maketrans(from, to, remove='', /)

This static method returns a translation table usable for str.translate().

If there is only one argument, it must be a dictionary mapping Unicode ordinals (integers) or characters (strings of length 1) to Unicode ordinals, strings (of arbitrary lengths) or None. Character keys will then be converted to ordinals.

If there are two arguments, they must be strings of equal length, and in the resulting dictionary, each character in from will be mapped to the character at the same position in to. If there is a third argument, it must be a string, whose characters will be mapped to None in the result.

str.partition(sep, /)¶

Split the string at the first occurrence of sep, and return a 3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator itself, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not found, return a 3-tuple containing the string itself, followed by two empty strings.

For example:

>>> 'Monty Python'.partition(' ')
('Monty', ' ', 'Python')
>>> "Monty Python's Flying Circus".partition(' ')
('Monty', ' ', "Python's Flying Circus")
>>> 'Monty Python'.partition('-')
('Monty Python', '', '')

See also rpartition().

str.removeprefix(prefix, /)¶

If the string starts with the prefix string, return string[len(prefix):]. Otherwise, return a copy of the original string:

>>> 'TestHook'.removeprefix('Test')
'Hook'
>>> 'BaseTestCase'.removeprefix('Test')
'BaseTestCase'

Added in version 3.9.

See also removesuffix() and startswith().

str.removesuffix(suffix, /)¶

If the string ends with the suffix string and that suffix is not empty, return string[:-len(suffix)]. Otherwise, return a copy of the original string:

>>> 'MiscTests'.removesuffix('Tests')
'Misc'
>>> 'TmpDirMixin'.removesuffix('Tests')
'TmpDirMixin'

Added in version 3.9.

See also removeprefix() and endswith().

str.replace(old, new, /, count=-1)¶

Return a copy of the string with all occurrences of substring old replaced by new. If count is given, only the first count occurrences are replaced. If count is not specified or -1, then all occurrences are replaced. For example:

>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.replace('spam', 'eggs')
'eggs, eggs, eggs'
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.replace('spam', 'eggs', 1)
'eggs, spam, spam'

Changed in version 3.13: count is now supported as a keyword argument.

str.rfind(sub[, start[, end]])¶

Return the highest index in the string where substring sub is found, such that sub is contained within s[start:end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Return -1 on failure. For example:

>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.rfind('sp')
12
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.rfind('sp', 0, 10)
6

See also find() and rindex().

str.rindex(sub[, start[, end]])¶

Like rfind() but raises ValueError when the substring sub is not found. For example:

>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.rindex('spam')
12
>>> 'spam, spam, spam'.rindex('eggs')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin-0>", line 1, in <module>
    'spam, spam, spam'.rindex('eggs')
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^
ValueError: substring not found

See also index() and find().

str.rjust(width, fillchar=' ', /)¶

Return the string right justified in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is an ASCII space). The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

For example:

>>> 'Python'.rjust(10)
'    Python'
>>> 'Python'.rjust(10, '.')
'....Python'
>>> 'Monty Python'.rjust(10, '.')
'Monty Python'

See also ljust() and zfill().

str.rpartition(sep, /)¶

Split the string at the last occurrence of sep, and return a 3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator itself, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not found, return a 3-tuple containing two empty strings, followed by the string itself.

For example:

>>> 'Monty Python'.rpartition(' ')
('Monty', ' ', 'Python')
>>> "Monty Python's Flying Circus".rpartition(' ')
("Monty Python's Flying", ' ', 'Circus')
>>> 'Monty Python'.rpartition('-')
('', '', 'Monty Python')

See also partition().

str.rsplit(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)¶

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done, the rightmost ones. If sep is not specified or None, any whitespace string is a separator. Except for splitting from the right, rsplit() behaves like split() which is described in detail below.

str.rstrip(chars=None, /)¶

Return a copy of the string with trailing characters removed. The chars argument is a string specifying the set of characters to be removed. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing whitespace. The chars argument is not a suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped. For example:

>>> '   spacious   '.rstrip()
'   spacious'
>>> 'mississippi'.rstrip('ipz')
'mississ'

See removesuffix() for a method that will remove a single suffix string rather than all of a set of characters. For example:

>>> 'Monty Python'.rstrip(' Python')
'M'
>>> 'Monty Python'.removesuffix(' Python')
'Monty'

See also strip().

str.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)¶

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done (thus, the list will have at most maxsplit+1 elements). If maxsplit is not specified or -1, then there is no limit on the number of splits (all possible splits are made).

If sep is given, consecutive delimiters are not grouped together and are deemed to delimit empty strings (for example, '1,,2'.split(',') returns ['1', '', '2']). The sep argument may consist of multiple characters as a single delimiter (to split with multiple delimiters, use re.split()). Splitting an empty string with a specified separator returns [''].

For example:

>>> '1,2,3'.split(',')
['1', '2', '3']
>>> '1,2,3'.split(',', maxsplit=1)
['1', '2,3']
>>> '1,2,,3,'.split(',')
['1', '2', '', '3', '']
>>> '1<>2<>3<4'.split('<>')
['1', '2', '3<4']

If sep is not specified or is None, a different splitting algorithm is applied: runs of consecutive whitespace are regarded as a single separator, and the result will contain no empty strings at the start or end if the string has leading or trailing whitespace. Consequently, splitting an empty string or a string consisting of just whitespace with a None separator returns [].

For example:

>>> '1 2 3'.split()
['1', '2', '3']
>>> '1 2 3'.split(maxsplit=1)
['1', '2 3']
>>> '   1   2   3   '.split()
['1', '2', '3']

If sep is not specified or is None and maxsplit is 0, only leading runs of consecutive whitespace are considered.

For example:

>>> "".split(None, 0)
[]
>>> "   ".split(None, 0)
[]
>>> "   foo   ".split(maxsplit=0)
['foo   ']

See also join().

str.splitlines(keepends=False)¶

Return a list of the lines in the string, breaking at line boundaries. Line breaks are not included in the resulting list unless keepends is given and true.

This method splits on the following line boundaries. In particular, the boundaries are a superset of universal newlines.

Representation	Description
\n	Line Feed
\r	Carriage Return
\r\n	Carriage Return + Line Feed
\v or \x0b	Line Tabulation
\f or \x0c	Form Feed
\x1c	File Separator
\x1d	Group Separator
\x1e	Record Separator
\x85	Next Line (C1 Control Code)
\u2028	Line Separator
\u2029	Paragraph Separator

Changed in version 3.2: \v and \f added to list of line boundaries.

For example:

>>> 'ab c\n\nde fg\rkl\r\n'.splitlines()
['ab c', '', 'de fg', 'kl']
>>> 'ab c\n\nde fg\rkl\r\n'.splitlines(keepends=True)
['ab c\n', '\n', 'de fg\r', 'kl\r\n']

Unlike split() when a delimiter string sep is given, this method returns an empty list for the empty string, and a terminal line break does not result in an extra line:

>>> "".splitlines()
[]
>>> "One line\n".splitlines()
['One line']

For comparison, split('\n') gives:

>>> ''.split('\n')
['']
>>> 'Two lines\n'.split('\n')
['Two lines', '']

str.startswith(prefix[, start[, end]])¶

Return True if string starts with the prefix, otherwise return False. prefix can also be a tuple of prefixes to look for. With optional start, test string beginning at that position. With optional end, stop comparing string at that position.

For example:

>>> 'Python'.startswith('Py')
True
>>> 'a tuple of prefixes'.startswith(('at', 'a'))
True
>>> 'Python is amazing'.startswith('is', 7)
True

See also endswith() and removeprefix().

str.strip(chars=None, /)¶

Return a copy of the string with the leading and trailing characters removed. The chars argument is a string specifying the set of characters to be removed. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing whitespace. The chars argument is not a prefix or suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped.

For example:

>>> '   spacious   '.strip()
'spacious'
>>> 'www.example.com'.strip('cmowz.')
'example'

The outermost leading and trailing chars argument values are stripped from the string. Characters are removed from the leading end until reaching a string character that is not contained in the set of characters in chars. A similar action takes place on the trailing end.

For example:

>>> comment_string = '#....... Section 3.2.1 Issue #32 .......'
>>> comment_string.strip('.#! ')
'Section 3.2.1 Issue #32'

See also rstrip().

str.swapcase()¶

Return a copy of the string with uppercase characters converted to lowercase and vice versa. For example:

>>> 'Hello World'.swapcase()
'hELLO wORLD'

Note that it is not necessarily true that s.swapcase().swapcase() == s. For example:

>>> 'straße'.swapcase().swapcase()
'strasse'

See also str.lower() and str.upper().

str.title()¶

Return a titlecased version of the string where words start with an uppercase character and the remaining characters are lowercase.

For example:

>>> 'Hello world'.title()
'Hello World'

The algorithm uses a simple language-independent definition of a word as groups of consecutive letters. The definition works in many contexts but it means that apostrophes in contractions and possessives form word boundaries, which may not be the desired result:

>>> "they're bill's friends from the UK".title()
"They'Re Bill'S Friends From The Uk"

The string.capwords() function does not have this problem, as it splits words on spaces only.

Alternatively, a workaround for apostrophes can be constructed using regular expressions:

>>> import re
>>> def titlecase(s):
...     return re.sub(r"[A-Za-z]+('[A-Za-z]+)?",
...                   lambda mo: mo.group(0).capitalize(),
...                   s)
...
>>> titlecase("they're bill's friends.")
"They're Bill's Friends."

See also istitle().

str.translate(table, /)¶

Return a copy of the string in which each character has been mapped through the given translation table. The table must be an object that implements indexing via __getitem__(), typically a mapping or sequence. When indexed by a Unicode ordinal (an integer), the table object can do any of the following: return a Unicode ordinal or a string, to map the character to one or more other characters; return None, to delete the character from the return string; or raise a LookupError exception, to map the character to itself.

You can use str.maketrans() to create a translation map from character-to-character mappings in different formats.

See also the codecs module for a more flexible approach to custom character mappings.

str.upper()¶

Return a copy of the string with all the cased characters [4] converted to uppercase. Note that s.upper().isupper() might be False if s contains uncased characters or if the Unicode category of the resulting character(s) is not “Lu” (Letter, uppercase), but e.g. “Lt” (Letter, titlecase).

The uppercasing algorithm used is described in section 3.13 ‘Default Case Folding’ of the Unicode Standard.

str.zfill(width, /)¶

Return a copy of the string left filled with ASCII '0' digits to make a string of length width. A leading sign prefix ('+'/'-') is handled by inserting the padding after the sign character rather than before. The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

For example:

>>> "42".zfill(5)
'00042'
>>> "-42".zfill(5)
'-0042'

See also rjust().

Formatted String Literals (f-strings)¶

An f-string (formally a formatted string literal) is a string literal that is prefixed with f or F. This type of string literal allows embedding the results of arbitrary Python expressions within replacement fields, which are delimited by curly brackets ({}). Each replacement field must contain an expression, optionally followed by:

• a debug specifier – an equal sign (=);

• a conversion specifier – !s, !r or !a; and/or

• a format specifier prefixed with a colon (:).

See the Lexical Analysis section on f-strings for details on the syntax of these fields.

>>> number = 14.3
>>> f'{number=}'
'number=14.3'

>>> f'{ number  -  4  = }'
' number  -  4  = 10.3'

>>> from fractions import Fraction
>>> one_third = Fraction(1, 3)
>>> f'{one_third}'
'1/3'

>>> f'{one_third = }'
'one_third = Fraction(1, 3)'