{"id":128859,"date":"2022-10-13T13:35:50","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T13:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.finxter.com\/?p=784920"},"modified":"2022-10-13T13:35:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T13:35:50","slug":"python-return-string-from-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/10\/13\/python-return-string-from-function\/","title":{"rendered":"Python Return String From Function"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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5\/5 – (1 vote) <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Do you need to create a function that returns a string<\/strong> but you don’t know how? No worries, in sixty seconds, you’ll know! Go! \"\ud83d\ude80\"<\/p>\n

A Python function can return any object such as a string. To return a string, create the string object within the function body, assign it to a variable my_string<\/code>, and return it to the caller of the function using the keyword <\/a>operation return my_string<\/code>. Or simply create the string within the return expression like so: return \"hello world\"<\/code> <\/p>\n

def f(): return 'hello world' f()\n# hello world<\/pre>\n
Create String in Function Body<\/h2>\n
Let’s have a look at another example:<\/p>\n
The following code creates a function create_string()<\/code> that iterates over all numbers 0, 1, 2, …, 9, appends <\/a>them to the string my_string<\/code>, and returns the string to the caller of the function:<\/p>\n
def create_string(): ''' Function to return string ''' my_string = '' for i in range(10): my_string += str(i) return my_string s = create_string()\nprint(s)\n# 0123456789\n<\/pre>\n
Note that you store the resulting string in the variable s<\/code>. The local <\/a>variable my_string<\/code> that you created within the function body is only visible within the function but not outside of it. <\/p>\n
So, if you try to access the name my_string<\/code>, Python will raise a NameError<\/code>:<\/p>\n
>>> print(my_string)\nTraceback (most recent call last): File \"<pyshell#1>\", line 1, in <module> print(my_string)\nNameError: name 'my_string' is not defined<\/pre>\n
To fix this, simply assign the return value of the function — a string — to a new variable and access the content of this new variable:<\/p>\n
>>> s = create_string()\n>>> print(s)\n0123456789<\/pre>\n
There are many other ways to return a string in Python. <\/p>\n
Return String With List Comprehension<\/h2>\n
For example, you can use a list comprehension<\/a> in combination with the string.join()<\/a><\/code> method instead that is much more concise than the previous code—but creates the same string of digits:<\/p>\n
def create_string(): ''' Function to return string ''' return ''.join([str(i) for i in range(10)]) s = create_string()\nprint(s)\n# 0123456789\n<\/pre>\n
For a quick recap on list comprehension, feel free to scroll down to the end of this article.<\/p>\n
You can also add some separator strings like so:<\/p>\n
def create_string(): ''' Function to return string ''' return ' xxx '.join([str(i) for i in range(10)]) s = create_string()\nprint(s)\n# 0 xxx 1 xxx 2 xxx 3 xxx 4 xxx 5 xxx 6 xxx 7 xxx 8 xxx 9\n<\/pre>\n
Return String with String Concatenation<\/h2>\n
You can also use a string concatenation<\/a> and string multiplication<\/a> statement to create a string dynamically and return it from a function.<\/p>\n
Here’s an example of string multiplication:<\/p>\n
def create_string(): ''' Function to return string ''' return 'ho' * 10 s = create_string()\nprint(s)\n# hohohohohohohohohoho\n<\/pre>\n
String Concatenation of Function Arguments<\/h2>\n
Here’s an example of string concatenation that appends all arguments to a given string and returns the result from the function:<\/p>\n
def create_string(a, b, c): ''' Function to return string ''' return 'My String: ' + a + b + c s = create_string('python ', 'is ', 'great')\nprint(s)\n# My String: python is great\n<\/pre>\n
Concatenate Arbitrary String Arguments and Return String Result<\/h2>\n
You can also use dynamic argument lists to be able to add an arbitrary number of string arguments and concatenate all of them:<\/p>\n
def create_string(*args): ''' Function to return string ''' return ' '.join(str(x) for x in args) print(create_string('python', 'is', 'great'))\n# python is great print(create_string(42, 41, 40, 41, 42, 9999, 'hi'))\n# 42 41 40 41 42 9999 hi<\/pre>\n
Background List Comprehension<\/h2>\n
\"\ud83d\udca1\" Knowledge<\/strong>: List comprehension is a very useful Python feature that allows you to dynamically create a list<\/a> by using the syntax [expression context]<\/code>. You iterate<\/a> over all elements in a given context “for i in range(10)<\/code>“, and apply a certain expression, e.g., the identity expression i<\/code>, before adding the resulting values to the newly-created list.<\/p>\n
In case you need to learn more about list comprehension, feel free to check out my explainer video:<\/p>\n
\"YouTube<\/a>
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Programmer Humor<\/h2>\n
Q<\/strong>: How do you tell an introverted computer scientist from an extroverted computer scientist? A<\/strong>: An extroverted computer scientist looks at your<\/em><\/strong> shoes when he talks to you.<\/code><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
5\/5 – (1 vote) Do you need to create a function that returns a string but you don’t know how? No worries, in sixty seconds, you’ll know! Go! A Python function can return any object such as a string. To return a string, create the string object within the function body, assign it to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[857],"tags":[73,468,528],"class_list":["post-128859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-python-tut","tag-programming","tag-python","tag-tutorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}