How to Remove Characters from Strings in Python?

Removing Characters from Strings in Python

In Python, strings are immutable sequences of characters, meaning they cannot be modified in-place. This raises the question of how to remove a specific character from a string.

String Termination

Unlike C strings, which are null-terminated, Python strings do not end with a special character. Their length is explicitly stored as a property of the string object.

Approaches to Character Removal

There are two common approaches to deleting characters from Python strings:

1. Replacing the Character

To remove all occurrences of a specific character, you can use the replace() method. For example, to remove the character 'M' from the string "EXAMPLE":

<code class="python">newstr = "EXAMPLE".replace("M", "")</code>

2. Creating a New String

To remove a specific character based on its position, you need to create a new string. You can approach this in two ways:

• Shifting Characters:

  Shift all characters to the right of the target character one position to the left. For the character at position midlen, the new string is:

  <code class="python">newstr = oldstr[:midlen] + oldstr[midlen+1:]</code>

• Concatenation:

  Create a new string by concatenating the substring before the target character with the substring after it. For the character at position midlen, the new string is:

  <code class="python">newstr = oldstr[:midlen-1] + oldstr[midlen+1:]</code>

The choice of approach depends on the specific requirements and performance considerations. For removing a single character from the middle of a long string, creating a new string with shifting may be more efficient.

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