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This tutorial explains about character’s position of a given string in Python language. The string is a group of characters enclosed in double quotes. Characters in a string are located with starting index of 0.
For example, Starting character position is 0.
How to Get character position in a String in python?
- use find() function
String find function checks the given substring position and returns the position if a matching substring is found. Returns -1 if no match is found.
Syntax:
str.find(substring[, start[, end]])¶
Arguments:
- substring - substring to search in a given string and returns the first occurrence of a string.
- start and end options are optional, index, For example, start=1 and end=4 take a character from starting position 1 and the end position is equal to 3.
Returns:
find() function returns
- index position if found
-1returned if no matching character/substring in a given string,
This function is case-sensitive.
Here is an example
name="John"
print( name.find('o'))
print( name.find('J'))
print( name.find('j'))
Output:
1
0
-1
- index() function
The string contains an
index()function that returns the position or index of a given character in a string.
Syntax:
string.index(charcter[, start[, end]])
```
**Arguments:**
- character - character to search in a given string and returns the first occurrence of a string.
- start and end options are optional, index, For example, start=1 and end=4 take a character from starting position 1 and the end position is equal to 3.
**Returns:**
index() function returns
- index position if found
- throws `ValueError` if no matching character in a given string,
This function is case-sensitive.
Here is an example
```python
name="John"
print( name.index('o'))
print( name.index('J'))
print( name.index('j'))
```
```markdown
1
0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "a:\work\python\string.py", line 5, in <module>
print( name.index('j'))
ValueError: substring not found
```
- use for index with string enumerate function
This is the way of finding a position using brute force search.
- String is iterated using enumerate function
- used for loop with index syntax
- check each character and return the index if a matching character is found.
Here is an example
```markdown
name="John"
for index, character in enumerate(name):
if "J"==character: {
print(index)
}
```
```markdown
0
```
## Conclusion
Learned multiple ways to find the position of a character in a string
- index() function
- find() function
- for loop with index syntax
The first approach is better, It checks for matching and nonmatching use cases and return the position of a number, and good in performance compared with other two approaches
the disadvantages with the other are
- find() method throws ValueError if no match is found.
- For loop iterates all characters in a string in the worst case, so not advisable interms o performance.
