12/12/2023, 17:23 Everything You Need to Know About Python Slicing

An index is a position of an individual character or element in a list, tuple, or string. The index
value always starts at zero and ends at one less than the number of items.

Fig: Index position

Negative indexes enable users to index a list, tuple, or other indexable containers from the end of
the container, rather than the start.

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What Is Slicing?

Slicing is the extraction of a part of a string, list, or tuple. It enables users to access the speci c
range of elements by mentioning their indices.

Syntax: Object [start:stop:step]

“Start” speci es the starting index of a slice

“Stop” speci es the ending element of a slice

You can use one of these if you want to skip certain items

Example:

Fig: Python slicing

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Note: The search will start at index one (included) and ends at index six (not included).

The following image shows some examples of slicing in a string and tuple:

Fig: Additional slicing examples

Slice with Negative Indices

Negative slicing begins at the end of the list.

Example:

Fig: Slicing using negative indices

Specify Step of the Slicing

You can follow a speci c step in order to skip certain items.

Example:

Fig: Stepped slicing

In the above example, the string ‘SIMPLILEARN’ is sliced from indexes one through seven.
However, because the step size was set as number two, you will receive every second character
in the output starting from the rst index.

Reversing Elements of Data Structure

We can use a negative step to reverse the elements of a data structure.

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Example:

Fig: Reversing elements using negative step

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Slice() Function in Python

The slice() method extracts a section of data and returns it as new data, without modifying it.
This means users can take a speci c range of elements without changing it.

Syntax: slice(start,stop,step)

Example:

Fig: slice() function

Insert and Delete Multiple Items Using Slicing

1. Slice insertion in Python

Users can insert items into a list without replacing other elements.

Example:
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Fig: Inserting elements using Python slicing

2. Slice deletion in Python

Users can delete multiple items out of the data structure by using a del statement.

Example:

Fig: Delete list items using Python slicing

Note: Tuple object does not support item deletion.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed two key concepts: Python slicing and indexing. We looked at how
slicing, negative slicing, and step-indexing works through various examples. Both concepts are
essential for understanding Python.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section, and we'll have our experts
answer them for you.

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