To see the full documentation for both str and list classes:

$ python
>>> help(str)
>>> help(list)

A string (type name str) is a sequence of characters between single or double quotes. A string has a length, which is the number of characters in the string. Each character is in a position in the string: the first character in position 0, the second in position 1, etc.

s = "hello there"
length = len(s)  
print(length)  # prints 11 (space is a character)
print(s[0])    # prints h 
print(s[1])    # prints e 

Because a string is a sequence, we can use it in a for loop. We can either iterate over each character in the string, or each position in the string. Here are two examples:

s = "hello"

for ch in s:             # iterate over each character in the string
  print(ch)

for i in range(len(s)):  # iterate over positions (i.e., 0, 1, 2, ...)
  print(s[i])

You can convert from one type to another (if possible) using str(), int(), and float():

s = str(1234)    # convert int value to a string "1234"
x = int(s)       # convert "1234" to an int
f = float(s)     # convert "1234" to a float (1234.0)

Strings are immutable, which means you cannot change individual characters in a string. However, you can create new strings from parts of existing strings. Slicing (using [:] to pick out part of the original string) and concatenation (using the + operator) are useful for doing this:

>>> s = "swarthmore computer science"
>>> slice = s[11:15]
>>> print(slice)
comp
>>> slice = slice + "sci"
>>> print(slice)
compsci
>>> 

Here's an example of using concatenation to accumulate a string:

s = ""                 # start with empty string
for i in range(5):
  s = s + str(i)       # add to it
print(s)               # prints the string "01234"

You can test if a substring is present in another string using the in (membership) operator:

"a" in "computer science"  # evaluates to False
"the" in "hello there"     # evaluates to True
"LL" in "hello there"      # evaluates to False

ascii encoding of characters

Strings are encoded using the ascii encoding (a numeric value for each character in the string). When you compare strings, they are compared by these numeric values. It is not important to know the ascii values, but you should remember that the ascii values for 'a' to 'z', 'A' to 'Z' and '0' to '9' are contiguous.

'0' < '8'          # True
'a' < 'b'          # True
'C' < 'Z'          # True
'a' < 'Z'          # False (ascii encoding for 'a' is larger than 'Z')
"aaa" < "bbb"      # True
"aaabc" < "aabb"   # True : 1st two characters ==, but third 'a' < 'b' so True

With single character strings you can convert to their ascii values. The ascii values alone are not that useful, but comparing them can often be. Remember that the encodings for 'a' to 'z', 'A' to 'Z' and '0' to '9' are contiguous:

>>> ch = "C"
>>> ord(ch)
67                         # "C" is ascii value 67
>>> ord("A")
65                         # "A" is ascii value 65
>>> ord(ch) - ord("A")
2                          # difference tells us position of "C" in alphabet
>>> nextch = chr(68)       # "D" has ascii value 68
>>> print(nextch)
D

A list is a sequence of values. The values can be any type (e.g. int, float, str, circle objects, ...). Just like strings, each item in a list has a position or index: first item is at position 0, second at position 1, etc.

L = [3, 5, 9, 11]
print(len(L))     # prints 4, number of elements in the list

Because a list is a sequence (just like strings) we can iterate using a for loop.

# iterate over elements in list
for elm in L:
  print(elm)                # prints out each element in the list

# iterate over positions in list
for i in range(len(L)):
  print(L[i])               # prints out item at each position

Python's list() and range() functions are useful in creating lists:

L = list("hello")  # create a list of 5 single-character strings ['h','e','l','l','o']
L = range(5)       # create a list of integers [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
L = range(0,50,7)  # create a list from 0-50 by 7's [0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49]

Unlike strings, lists are mutable, which means that their contents can be modified without having to create a new list.

>>> L = range(5)
>>> L[3] = "hello"
>>> print(L)
[0, 1, 2, 'hello', 4]

The append method can be used to add a new element to the end of a list (growing its length by one):

L = []                # create an empty list
for i in range(5):
   L.append(str(i))   # add str(i) to end of L
print(L)              # ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4']
print(len(L))         # 5

You can test if an element is in a list using the in (membership) operator:

L = range(1,100)
50 in L   # evaluates to True
250 in L  # evaluates to False
"a" in L  # evaluates to False

Strings are objects in Python, and thus have methods that we can invoke on them. There are a lot of methods in the str library for creating new string objects from existing string objects and for testing properties of strings. Here are a few that may be particularly useful (run help(str) in the python interpreter to see the full set):

s = "CS21 Rocks!"
s2 = s.lower()      # s2 gets "cs21 rocks!"  all upper-case alpha in s converted to lower
ch = 'a'
if(ch.isapha()):  
   print("a string of alphabetic chars only")
s = "123456"
if(s.isdigit()):
   print("a string of numeric chars only")

s = "    CS21 Rocks!!    \n"
s = s.strip()        #  creates new string from s with leading and trailing whitespace removed
print("*%s*" % (s))  #  *CS21 Rocks!!* 

# split string on whitespace
s = "we love computer science!"
L = s.split()
print(L)             # ['we', 'love', 'computer', 'science!']

my_list = ["Python", "is", "awesome"]
s = "".join(my_list)  #  create new string from contents of list with "" between each item
print(s)              #  "Pythonisawesome"

s = "*".join(my_list) #  "Python*is*awesome" 

Lists are also objects in Python, and thus have methods that we can invoke on them. Here are a few that may be particularly useful (run help(list) in the python interpreter to see the full set):

lst = [1, 3, 11]
lst.append(8)     # add 8 to the end of the list: [1, 3, 11, 8]
lst.append(3)     # add 3 to the end of the list: [1, 3, 11, 8, 3]

i = lst.index(3)  # returns 1, the index of the first occurrence of 3 in the list

lst.insert(i,5)   # insert the value 5 into the list at position i
print(lst)        # [1, 5, 3, 11, 8, 3]

how_many_threes = lst.count(3)   # count the number of 3's in the list (2)

L = list("ABCDEFG")
>>> print(L)
['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G']
>>> L.pop()                            # remove and return last item
'G'
>>> print(L)
['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F']
>>> L.pop()                            # remove and return last item
'F'
>>> print(L)
['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E']
>>> 

Often in programs that manipulate strings, you want to convert from str to list or list to str (due to list being mutable and str being immutable). Here are some examples of converting str to list (use the str class join() method (above) to convert a list to str):

# create a list of 1-character strings from a string
s = "CS21 Rocks!"
lst = list(s)   # ['C','S','2','1',' ','R','o','c','k','s','!']
print(len(lst)) # 11 

lst = s.split() # ["CS21", "Rocks!"] 
print(len(lst)) # 2

# use the string split method to create a list of strings from a string
s = "You:Can:Split:A:String:on:any====string"
slist = s.split("====")
print(slist)   #  ['You:Can:Split:A:String:on:any', 'string']
slist2 = s.split(":")
print(slist2)  # ['You', 'Can', 'Split', 'A', 'String', 'on', 'any====string']