[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Many people I know ask why Python does slicing the way it does.....
> Can anyone /please/ give me a good defense/justification??? > I'm referring to why mystring[:4] gives me > elements 0, 1, 2 and 3 but *NOT* mystring[4] (5th element). mystring[:4] can be read as "the first four characters of mystring". If it included mystring[4], you'd have to read it as "the first five characters of mystring", which wouldn't match the appearance of '4' in the slice. Given another slice like mystring[2:4], you know instantly by looking at the slice indices that this contains 4-2 = 2 characters from the original string. If the last index were included in the slice, you'd have to remember to add 1 to get the number of characters in the sliced string. It all makes perfect sense when you look at it this way! Nick -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
