Introduction
Indexing (S[i]) fetches components at offsets:
- The first item is at offset 0.
- Negative indexes mean to count backward from the end or right.
- S[0] fetches the first item.
- S[-2] fetches the second item from the end (like S[len(S)-2]).
Slicing (S[i:j ]) extracts contiguous sections of sequences:
- The upper bound is noninclusive.
- Slice boundaries default to 0 and the sequence length, if omitted.
- S[1:3] fetches items at offsets 1 up to but not including 3.
- S[1:] fetches items at offset 1 through the end (the sequence length).
- S[:3] fetches items at offset 0 up to but not including 3.
- S[:-1] fetches items at offset 0 up to but not including the last item.
- S[:] fetches items at offsets 0 through the end-making a top-level copy of S.
Extended slicing (S[i:j :k]) accepts a step (or stride) k, which defaults to +1:
- Allows for skipping items and reversing order-see the next section.
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