String Basics

Difficulty: Beginner

Strings in Python are sequences of characters enclosed in quotes. You can use single quotes ('hello'), double quotes ("hello"), or triple quotes ('''hello''' or """hello""") to create strings. Single and double quotes work identically for single-line strings, so choose whichever avoids the need for escaping internal quotes.

Triple-quoted strings can span multiple lines and preserve line breaks. They are commonly used for docstrings (documentation strings inside functions, classes, and modules) and for any text that naturally spans several lines.

Escape characters let you include special characters inside strings. The backslash (\) is the escape character: \n inserts a newline, \t inserts a tab, \\ inserts a literal backslash, and \' or \" inserts a quote character. These are essential when you need characters that cannot be typed directly into a string literal.

Raw strings, prefixed with r or R, treat backslashes as literal characters instead of escape characters. Writing r"C:\Users\name" keeps every backslash as-is, which is especially useful for Windows file paths and regular expressions where backslashes appear frequently.

Code examples

Single, Double, and Triple Quotes

single = 'Hello, World!'
double = "Hello, World!"
triple = '''This is
a multi-line
string.'''

print(single)
print(double)
print(triple)

Single and double quotes produce identical strings. Triple quotes preserve newlines and allow the string to span multiple lines in source code.

Escape Characters

tab_example = "Name:\tAlice"
newline_example = "Line 1\nLine 2"
quote_example = "She said \"hi\""
backslash_example = "C:\\Users\\Alice"

print(tab_example)
print(newline_example)
print(quote_example)
print(backslash_example)

\t produces a tab, \n produces a newline, \" inserts a double quote inside a double-quoted string, and \\ produces a single backslash.

Raw Strings

normal = "C:\\new_folder\\test"
raw = r"C:\new_folder\test"

print(normal)
print(raw)
print(normal == raw)

The raw string r"..." treats backslashes literally, so \n is two characters (backslash + n) rather than a newline. Both variables produce the same string.

Key points

• Strings in Python are immutable: once created, individual characters cannot be changed in place.
• Use single quotes inside double-quoted strings (or vice versa) to avoid escape characters: "It's easy" or 'She said "hi"'.
• Triple-quoted strings are the standard way to write Python docstrings.

Concepts covered

strings, quotes, escape characters, raw strings