4.4.1. Bitwise Operations on Integer Types

Bitwise operations only make sense for integers. Negative numbers are treated as their 2’s complement value (this assumes that there are enough bits so that no overflow occurs during the operation).

The priorities of the binary bitwise operations are all lower than the numeric operations and higher than the comparisons; the unary operation ~ has the same priority as the other unary numeric operations (+ and -).

This table lists the bitwise operations sorted in ascending priority:

Notes:

1. Negative shift counts are illegal and cause a ValueError to be raised.
2. A left shift by n bits is equivalent to multiplication by pow(2, n) without overflow check.
3. A right shift by n bits is equivalent to division by pow(2, n) without overflow check.

4.4.2. Additional Methods on Integer Types

The int type implements the numbers.Integral abstract base class. In addition, it provides a few more methods:

int.bit_length()

Return the number of bits necessary to represent an integer in binary, excluding the sign and leading zeros:

>>> n = -37
>>> bin(n)
'-0b100101'
>>> n.bit_length()
6

More precisely, if x is nonzero, then x.bit_length() is the unique positive integer k such that 2**(k-1) <= abs(x) < 2**k. Equivalently, when abs(x) is small enough to have a correctly rounded logarithm, then k = 1 + int(log(abs(x), 2)). If x is zero, then x.bit_length() returns 0.

Equivalent to:

def bit_length(self):
    s = bin(self)       # binary representation:  bin(-37) --> '-0b100101'
    s = s.lstrip('-0b') # remove leading zeros and minus sign
    return len(s)       # len('100101') --> 6

New in version 3.1.

int.to_bytes(length, byteorder, *, signed=False)

Return an array of bytes representing an integer.

>>> (1024).to_bytes(2, byteorder='big')
b'\x04\x00'
>>> (1024).to_bytes(10, byteorder='big')
b'\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x04\x00'
>>> (-1024).to_bytes(10, byteorder='big', signed=True)
b'\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfc\x00'
>>> x = 1000
>>> x.to_bytes((x.bit_length() + 7) // 8, byteorder='little')
b'\xe8\x03'

The integer is represented using length bytes. An OverflowError is raised if the integer is not representable with the given number of bytes.

The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer. If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the byte array. If byteorder is "little", the most significant byte is at the end of the byte array. To request the native byte order of the host system, use sys.byteorder as the byte order value.

The signed argument determines whether two’s complement is used to represent the integer. If signed is False and a negative integer is given, an OverflowError is raised. The default value for signed is False.

New in version 3.2.

classmethod int.from_bytes(bytes, byteorder, *, signed=False)

Return the integer represented by the given array of bytes.

>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x00\x10', byteorder='big')
16
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x00\x10', byteorder='little')
4096
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\xfc\x00', byteorder='big', signed=True)
-1024
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\xfc\x00', byteorder='big', signed=False)
64512
>>> int.from_bytes([255, 0, 0], byteorder='big')
16711680

The argument bytes must either be a bytes-like object or an iterable producing bytes.

The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer. If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the byte array. If byteorder is "little", the most significant byte is at the end of the byte array. To request the native byte order of the host system, use sys.byteorder as the byte order value.

The signed argument indicates whether two’s complement is used to represent the integer.

New in version 3.2.

4.4.3. Additional Methods on Float

The float type implements the numbers.Real abstract base class. float also has the following additional methods.

float.as_integer_ratio()

Return a pair of integers whose ratio is exactly equal to the original float and with a positive denominator. Raises OverflowError on infinities and a ValueError on NaNs.

float.is_integer()

Return True if the float instance is finite with integral value, and False otherwise:

>>> (-2.0).is_integer()
True
>>> (3.2).is_integer()
False

Two methods support conversion to and from hexadecimal strings. Since Python’s floats are stored internally as binary numbers, converting a float to or from a decimal string usually involves a small rounding error. In contrast, hexadecimal strings allow exact representation and specification of floating-point numbers. This can be useful when debugging, and in numerical work.

float.hex()

Return a representation of a floating-point number as a hexadecimal string. For finite floating-point numbers, this representation will always include a leading 0x and a trailing p and exponent.

classmethod float.fromhex(s)

Class method to return the float represented by a hexadecimal string s. The string s may have leading and trailing whitespace.

Note that float.hex() is an instance method, while float.fromhex() is a class method.

A hexadecimal string takes the form:

[sign] ['0x'] integer ['.' fraction] ['p' exponent]

where the optional sign may by either + or -, integer and fraction are strings of hexadecimal digits, and exponent is a decimal integer with an optional leading sign. Case is not significant, and there must be at least one hexadecimal digit in either the integer or the fraction. This syntax is similar to the syntax specified in section 6.4.4.2 of the C99 standard, and also to the syntax used in Java 1.5 onwards. In particular, the output of float.hex() is usable as a hexadecimal floating-point literal in C or Java code, and hexadecimal strings produced by C’s %a format character or Java’s Double.toHexString are accepted by float.fromhex().

Note that the exponent is written in decimal rather than hexadecimal, and that it gives the power of 2 by which to multiply the coefficient. For example, the hexadecimal string 0x3.a7p10 represents the floating-point number (3 + 10./16 + 7./16**2) * 2.0**10, or 3740.0:

>>> float.fromhex('0x3.a7p10')
3740.0

Applying the reverse conversion to 3740.0 gives a different hexadecimal string representing the same number:

>>> float.hex(3740.0)
'0x1.d380000000000p+11'

4.4.4. Hashing of numeric types

For numbers x and y, possibly of different types, it’s a requirement that hash(x) == hash(y) whenever x == y (see the __hash__() method documentation for more details). For ease of implementation and efficiency across a variety of numeric types (including int, float, decimal.Decimal and fractions.Fraction) Python’s hash for numeric types is based on a single mathematical function that’s defined for any rational number, and hence applies to all instances of int and fractions.Fraction, and all finite instances of float and decimal.Decimal. Essentially, this function is given by reduction modulo P for a fixed prime P. The value of P is made available to Python as the modulus attribute of sys.hash_info.

Here are the rules in detail:

• If x = m / n is a nonnegative rational number and n is not divisible by P, define hash(x) as m * invmod(n, P) % P, where invmod(n, P) gives the inverse of n modulo P.
• If x = m / n is a nonnegative rational number and n is divisible by P (but m is not) then n has no inverse modulo P and the rule above doesn’t apply; in this case define hash(x) to be the constant value sys.hash_info.inf.
• If x = m / n is a negative rational number define hash(x) as -hash(-x). If the resulting hash is -1, replace it with -2.
• The particular values sys.hash_info.inf, -sys.hash_info.inf and sys.hash_info.nan are used as hash values for positive infinity, negative infinity, or nans (respectively). (All hashable nans have the same hash value.)
• For a complex number z, the hash values of the real and imaginary parts are combined by computing hash(z.real) + sys.hash_info.imag * hash(z.imag), reduced modulo 2**sys.hash_info.width so that it lies in range(-2**(sys.hash_info.width - 1), 2**(sys.hash_info.width - 1)). Again, if the result is -1, it’s replaced with -2.

To clarify the above rules, here’s some example Python code, equivalent to the built-in hash, for computing the hash of a rational number, float, or complex:

import sys, math

def hash_fraction(m, n):
    """Compute the hash of a rational number m / n.

    Assumes m and n are integers, with n positive.
    Equivalent to hash(fractions.Fraction(m, n)).

    """
    P = sys.hash_info.modulus
    # Remove common factors of P.  (Unnecessary if m and n already coprime.)
    while m % P == n % P == 0:
        m, n = m // P, n // P

    if n % P == 0:
        hash_value = sys.hash_info.inf
    else:
        # Fermat's Little Theorem: pow(n, P-1, P) is 1, so
        # pow(n, P-2, P) gives the inverse of n modulo P.
        hash_value = (abs(m) % P) * pow(n, P - 2, P) % P
    if m < 0:
        hash_value = -hash_value
    if hash_value == -1:
        hash_value = -2
    return hash_value

def hash_float(x):
    """Compute the hash of a float x."""

    if math.isnan(x):
        return sys.hash_info.nan
    elif math.isinf(x):
        return sys.hash_info.inf if x > 0 else -sys.hash_info.inf
    else:
        return hash_fraction(*x.as_integer_ratio())

def hash_complex(z):
    """Compute the hash of a complex number z."""

    hash_value = hash_float(z.real) + sys.hash_info.imag * hash_float(z.imag)
    # do a signed reduction modulo 2**sys.hash_info.width
    M = 2**(sys.hash_info.width - 1)
    hash_value = (hash_value & (M - 1)) - (hash_value & M)
    if hash_value == -1:
        hash_value = -2
    return hash_value

4.5.1. Generator Types

Python’s generators provide a convenient way to implement the iterator protocol. If a container object’s __iter__() method is implemented as a generator, it will automatically return an iterator object (technically, a generator object) supplying the __iter__() and __next__() methods. More information about generators can be found in the documentation for the yield expression.

4.6.1. Common Sequence Operations

The operations in the following table are supported by most sequence types, both mutable and immutable. The collections.abc.Sequence ABC is provided to make it easier to correctly implement these operations on custom sequence types.

This table lists the sequence operations sorted in ascending priority. In the table, s and t are sequences of the same type, n, i, j and k are integers and x is an arbitrary object that meets any type and value restrictions imposed by s.

The in and not in operations have the same priorities as the comparison operations. The + (concatenation) and * (repetition) operations have the same priority as the corresponding numeric operations. [3]

Sequences of the same type also support comparisons. In particular, tuples and lists are compared lexicographically by comparing corresponding elements. This means that to compare equal, every element must compare equal and the two sequences must be of the same type and have the same length. (For full details see Comparisons in the language reference.)

Notes:

1. While the in and not in operations are used only for simple containment testing in the general case, some specialised sequences (such as str, bytes and bytearray) also use them for subsequence testing:

   >>> "gg" in "eggs"
   True
   

2. Values of n less than 0 are treated as 0 (which yields an empty sequence of the same type as s). Note that items in the sequence s are not copied; they are referenced multiple times. This often haunts new Python programmers; consider:

   >>> lists = [[]] * 3
   >>> lists
   [[], [], []]
   >>> lists[0].append(3)
   >>> lists
   [[3], [3], [3]]
   

   What has happened is that [[]] is a one-element list containing an empty list, so all three elements of [[]] * 3 are references to this single empty list. Modifying any of the elements of lists modifies this single list. You can create a list of different lists this way:

   >>> lists = [[] for i in range(3)]
   >>> lists[0].append(3)
   >>> lists[1].append(5)
   >>> lists[2].append(7)
   >>> lists
   [[3], [5], [7]]
   

   Further explanation is available in the FAQ entry How do I create a multidimensional list?.

3. If i or j is negative, the index is relative to the end of sequence s: len(s) + i or len(s) + j is substituted. But note that -0 is still 0.

4. The slice of s from i to j is defined as the sequence of items with index k such that i <= k < j. If i or j is greater than len(s), use len(s). If i is omitted or None, use 0. If j is omitted or None, use len(s). If i is greater than or equal to j, the slice is empty.

5. The slice of s from i to j with step k is defined as the sequence of items with index x = i + n*k such that 0 <= n < (j-i)/k. In other words, the indices are i, i+k, i+2*k, i+3*k and so on, stopping when j is reached (but never including j). When k is positive, i and j are reduced to len(s) if they are greater. When k is negative, i and j are reduced to len(s) - 1 if they are greater. If i or j are omitted or None, they become “end” values (which end depends on the sign of k). Note, k cannot be zero. If k is None, it is treated like 1.

6. Concatenating immutable sequences always results in a new object. This means that building up a sequence by repeated concatenation will have a quadratic runtime cost in the total sequence length. To get a linear runtime cost, you must switch to one of the alternatives below:

   • if concatenating str objects, you can build a list and use str.join() at the end or else write to an io.StringIO instance and retrieve its value when complete
   • if concatenating bytes objects, you can similarly use bytes.join() or io.BytesIO, or you can do in-place concatenation with a bytearray object. bytearray objects are mutable and have an efficient overallocation mechanism
   • if concatenating tuple objects, extend a list instead
   • for other types, investigate the relevant class documentation

7. Some sequence types (such as range) only support item sequences that follow specific patterns, and hence don’t support sequence concatenation or repetition.

8. index raises ValueError when x is not found in s. When supported, the additional arguments to the index method allow efficient searching of subsections of the sequence. Passing the extra arguments is roughly equivalent to using s[i:j].index(x), only without copying any data and with the returned index being relative to the start of the sequence rather than the start of the slice.

4.6.2. Immutable Sequence Types

The only operation that immutable sequence types generally implement that is not also implemented by mutable sequence types is support for the hash() built-in.

This support allows immutable sequences, such as tuple instances, to be used as dict keys and stored in set and frozenset instances.

Attempting to hash an immutable sequence that contains unhashable values will result in TypeError.

4.6.3. Mutable Sequence Types

The operations in the following table are defined on mutable sequence types. The collections.abc.MutableSequence ABC is provided to make it easier to correctly implement these operations on custom sequence types.

In the table s is an instance of a mutable sequence type, t is any iterable object and x is an arbitrary object that meets any type and value restrictions imposed by s (for example, bytearray only accepts integers that meet the value restriction 0 <= x <= 255).

Notes:

1. t must have the same length as the slice it is replacing.

2. The optional argument i defaults to -1, so that by default the last item is removed and returned.

3. remove raises ValueError when x is not found in s.

4. The reverse() method modifies the sequence in place for economy of space when reversing a large sequence. To remind users that it operates by side effect, it does not return the reversed sequence.

5. clear() and copy() are included for consistency with the interfaces of mutable containers that don’t support slicing operations (such as dict and set)

   New in version 3.3: clear() and copy() methods.

6. The value n is an integer, or an object implementing __index__(). Zero and negative values of n clear the sequence. Items in the sequence are not copied; they are referenced multiple times, as explained for s * n under Common Sequence Operations.

4.6.4. Lists

Lists are mutable sequences, typically used to store collections of homogeneous items (where the precise degree of similarity will vary by application).

class list([iterable])

Lists may be constructed in several ways:

• Using a pair of square brackets to denote the empty list: []
• Using square brackets, separating items with commas: [a], [a, b, c]
• Using a list comprehension: [x for x in iterable]
• Using the type constructor: list() or list(iterable)

The constructor builds a list whose items are the same and in the same order as iterable’s items. iterable may be either a sequence, a container that supports iteration, or an iterator object. If iterable is already a list, a copy is made and returned, similar to iterable[:]. For example, list('abc') returns ['a', 'b', 'c'] and list( (1, 2, 3) ) returns [1, 2, 3]. If no argument is given, the constructor creates a new empty list, [].

Many other operations also produce lists, including the sorted() built-in.

Lists implement all of the common and mutable sequence operations. Lists also provide the following additional method:

sort(*, key=None, reverse=False)

This method sorts the list in place, using only < comparisons between items. Exceptions are not suppressed - if any comparison operations fail, the entire sort operation will fail (and the list will likely be left in a partially modified state).

sort() accepts two arguments that can only be passed by keyword (keyword-only arguments):

key specifies a function of one argument that is used to extract a comparison key from each list element (for example, key=str.lower). The key corresponding to each item in the list is calculated once and then used for the entire sorting process. The default value of None means that list items are sorted directly without calculating a separate key value.

The functools.cmp_to_key() utility is available to convert a 2.x style cmp function to a key function.

reverse is a boolean value. If set to True, then the list elements are sorted as if each comparison were reversed.

This method modifies the sequence in place for economy of space when sorting a large sequence. To remind users that it operates by side effect, it does not return the sorted sequence (use sorted() to explicitly request a new sorted list instance).

The sort() method is guaranteed to be stable. A sort is stable if it guarantees not to change the relative order of elements that compare equal — this is helpful for sorting in multiple passes (for example, sort by department, then by salary grade).

CPython implementation detail: While a list is being sorted, the effect of attempting to mutate, or even inspect, the list is undefined. The C implementation of Python makes the list appear empty for the duration, and raises ValueError if it can detect that the list has been mutated during a sort.

4.6.5. Tuples

Tuples are immutable sequences, typically used to store collections of heterogeneous data (such as the 2-tuples produced by the enumerate() built-in). Tuples are also used for cases where an immutable sequence of homogeneous data is needed (such as allowing storage in a set or dict instance).

class tuple([iterable])

Tuples may be constructed in a number of ways:

• Using a pair of parentheses to denote the empty tuple: ()
• Using a trailing comma for a singleton tuple: a, or (a,)
• Separating items with commas: a, b, c or (a, b, c)
• Using the tuple() built-in: tuple() or tuple(iterable)

The constructor builds a tuple whose items are the same and in the same order as iterable’s items. iterable may be either a sequence, a container that supports iteration, or an iterator object. If iterable is already a tuple, it is returned unchanged. For example, tuple('abc') returns ('a', 'b', 'c') and tuple( [1, 2, 3] ) returns (1, 2, 3). If no argument is given, the constructor creates a new empty tuple, ().

Note that it is actually the comma which makes a tuple, not the parentheses. The parentheses are optional, except in the empty tuple case, or when they are needed to avoid syntactic ambiguity. For example, f(a, b, c) is a function call with three arguments, while f((a, b, c)) is a function call with a 3-tuple as the sole argument.

Tuples implement all of the common sequence operations.

For heterogeneous collections of data where access by name is clearer than access by index, collections.namedtuple() may be a more appropriate choice than a simple tuple object.

4.6.6. Ranges

The range type represents an immutable sequence of numbers and is commonly used for looping a specific number of times in for loops.

class range(stop)

class range(start, stop[, step])

The arguments to the range constructor must be integers (either built-in int or any object that implements the __index__ special method). If the step argument is omitted, it defaults to 1. If the start argument is omitted, it defaults to 0. If step is zero, ValueError is raised.

For a positive step, the contents of a range r are determined by the formula r[i] = start + step*i where i >= 0 and r[i] < stop.

For a negative step, the contents of the range are still determined by the formula r[i] = start + step*i, but the constraints are i >= 0 and r[i] > stop.

A range object will be empty if r[0] does not meet the value constraint. Ranges do support negative indices, but these are interpreted as indexing from the end of the sequence determined by the positive indices.

Ranges containing absolute values larger than sys.maxsize are permitted but some features (such as len()) may raise OverflowError.

Range examples:

>>> list(range(10))
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
>>> list(range(1, 11))
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>>> list(range(0, 30, 5))
[0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25]
>>> list(range(0, 10, 3))
[0, 3, 6, 9]
>>> list(range(0, -10, -1))
[0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9]
>>> list(range(0))
[]
>>> list(range(1, 0))
[]

Ranges implement all of the common sequence operations except concatenation and repetition (due to the fact that range objects can only represent sequences that follow a strict pattern and repetition and concatenation will usually violate that pattern).

start

The value of the start parameter (or 0 if the parameter was not supplied)

stop

The value of the stop parameter

step

The value of the step parameter (or 1 if the parameter was not supplied)

The advantage of the range type over a regular list or tuple is that a range object will always take the same (small) amount of memory, no matter the size of the range it represents (as it only stores the start, stop and step values, calculating individual items and subranges as needed).

Range objects implement the collections.abc.Sequence ABC, and provide features such as containment tests, element index lookup, slicing and support for negative indices (see Sequence Types — list, tuple, range):

>>> r = range(0, 20, 2)
>>> r
range(0, 20, 2)
>>> 11 in r
False
>>> 10 in r
True
>>> r.index(10)
5
>>> r[5]
10
>>> r[:5]
range(0, 10, 2)
>>> r[-1]
18

Testing range objects for equality with == and != compares them as sequences. That is, two range objects are considered equal if they represent the same sequence of values. (Note that two range objects that compare equal might have different start, stop and step attributes, for example range(0) == range(2, 1, 3) or range(0, 3, 2) == range(0, 4, 2).)

Changed in version 3.3: For backwards compatibility with the Python 2 series, the u prefix is once again permitted on string literals. It has no effect on the meaning of string literals and cannot be combined with the r prefix.

4.7.1. String Methods

Strings implement all of the common sequence operations, along with the additional methods described below.

Strings also support two styles of string formatting, one providing a large degree of flexibility and customization (see str.format(), Format String Syntax and Custom String Formatting) and the other based on C printf style formatting that handles a narrower range of types and is slightly harder to use correctly, but is often faster for the cases it can handle (printf-style String Formatting).

The Text Processing Services section of the standard library covers a number of other modules that provide various text related utilities (including regular expression support in the re module).

str.capitalize()

Return a copy of the string with its first character capitalized and the rest lowercased.

str.casefold()

Return a casefolded copy of the string. Casefolded strings may be used for caseless matching.

Casefolding is similar to lowercasing but more aggressive because it is intended to remove all case distinctions in a string. For example, the German lowercase letter 'ß' is equivalent to "ss". Since it is already lowercase, lower() would do nothing to 'ß'; casefold() converts it to "ss".

The casefolding algorithm is described in section 3.13 of the Unicode Standard.

New in version 3.3.

str.center(width[, fillchar])

Return centered in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is an ASCII space). The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

str.count(sub[, start[, end]])

Return the number of non-overlapping occurrences of substring sub in the range [start, end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation.

str.encode(encoding="utf-8", errors="strict")

Return an encoded version of the string as a bytes object. Default encoding is 'utf-8'. errors may be given to set a different error handling scheme. The default for errors is 'strict', meaning that encoding errors raise a UnicodeError. Other possible values are 'ignore', 'replace', 'xmlcharrefreplace', 'backslashreplace' and any other name registered via codecs.register_error(), see section Error Handlers. For a list of possible encodings, see section Standard Encodings.

Changed in version 3.1: Support for keyword arguments added.

str.endswith(suffix[, start[, end]])

Return True if the string ends with the specified suffix, otherwise return False. suffix can also be a tuple of suffixes to look for. With optional start, test beginning at that position. With optional end, stop comparing at that position.

str.expandtabs(tabsize=8)

Return a copy of the string where all tab characters are replaced by one or more spaces, depending on the current column and the given tab size. Tab positions occur every tabsize characters (default is 8, giving tab positions at columns 0, 8, 16 and so on). To expand the string, the current column is set to zero and the string is examined character by character. If the character is a tab (\t), one or more space characters are inserted in the result until the current column is equal to the next tab position. (The tab character itself is not copied.) If the character is a newline (\n) or return (\r), it is copied and the current column is reset to zero. Any other character is copied unchanged and the current column is incremented by one regardless of how the character is represented when printed.

>>> '01\t012\t0123\t01234'.expandtabs()
'01      012     0123    01234'
>>> '01\t012\t0123\t01234'.expandtabs(4)
'01  012 0123    01234'

str.find(sub[, start[, end]])

Return the lowest index in the string where substring sub is found within the slice s[start:end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Return -1 if sub is not found.

Note

The find() method should be used only if you need to know the position of sub. To check if sub is a substring or not, use the in operator:

>>> 'Py' in 'Python'
True

str.format(*args, **kwargs)

Perform a string formatting operation. The string on which this method is called can contain literal text or replacement fields delimited by braces {}. Each replacement field contains either the numeric index of a positional argument, or the name of a keyword argument. Returns a copy of the string where each replacement field is replaced with the string value of the corresponding argument.

>>> "The sum of 1 + 2 is {0}".format(1+2)
'The sum of 1 + 2 is 3'

See Format String Syntax for a description of the various formatting options that can be specified in format strings.

str.format_map(mapping)

Similar to str.format(**mapping), except that mapping is used directly and not copied to a dict. This is useful if for example mapping is a dict subclass:

>>> class Default(dict):
...     def __missing__(self, key):
...         return key
...
>>> '{name} was born in {country}'.format_map(Default(name='Guido'))
'Guido was born in country'

New in version 3.2.

str.index(sub[, start[, end]])

Like find(), but raise ValueError when the substring is not found.

str.isalnum()

Return true if all characters in the string are alphanumeric and there is at least one character, false otherwise. A character c is alphanumeric if one of the following returns True: c.isalpha(), c.isdecimal(), c.isdigit(), or c.isnumeric().

str.isalpha()

Return true if all characters in the string are alphabetic and there is at least one character, false otherwise. Alphabetic characters are those characters defined in the Unicode character database as “Letter”, i.e., those with general category property being one of “Lm”, “Lt”, “Lu”, “Ll”, or “Lo”. Note that this is different from the “Alphabetic” property defined in the Unicode Standard.

str.isdecimal()

Return true if all characters in the string are decimal characters and there is at least one character, false otherwise. Decimal characters are those that can be used to form numbers in base 10, e.g. U+0660, ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ZERO. Formally a decimal character is a character in the Unicode General Category “Nd”.

str.isdigit()

Return true if all characters in the string are digits and there is at least one character, false otherwise. Digits include decimal characters and digits that need special handling, such as the compatibility superscript digits. This covers digits which cannot be used to form numbers in base 10, like the Kharosthi numbers. Formally, a digit is a character that has the property value Numeric_Type=Digit or Numeric_Type=Decimal.

str.isidentifier()

Return true if the string is a valid identifier according to the language definition, section Identifiers and keywords.

Use keyword.iskeyword() to test for reserved identifiers such as def and class.

str.islower()

Return true if all cased characters [4] in the string are lowercase and there is at least one cased character, false otherwise.

str.isnumeric()

Return true if all characters in the string are numeric characters, and there is at least one character, false otherwise. Numeric characters include digit characters, and all characters that have the Unicode numeric value property, e.g. U+2155, VULGAR FRACTION ONE FIFTH. Formally, numeric characters are those with the property value Numeric_Type=Digit, Numeric_Type=Decimal or Numeric_Type=Numeric.

str.isprintable()

Return true if all characters in the string are printable or the string is empty, false otherwise. Nonprintable characters are those characters defined in the Unicode character database as “Other” or “Separator”, excepting the ASCII space (0x20) which is considered printable. (Note that printable characters in this context are those which should not be escaped when repr() is invoked on a string. It has no bearing on the handling of strings written to sys.stdout or sys.stderr.)

str.isspace()

Return true if there are only whitespace characters in the string and there is at least one character, false otherwise. Whitespace characters are those characters defined in the Unicode character database as “Other” or “Separator” and those with bidirectional property being one of “WS”, “B”, or “S”.

str.istitle()

Return true if the string is a titlecased string and there is at least one character, for example uppercase characters may only follow uncased characters and lowercase characters only cased ones. Return false otherwise.

str.isupper()

Return true if all cased characters [4] in the string are uppercase and there is at least one cased character, false otherwise.

str.join(iterable)

Return a string which is the concatenation of the strings in iterable. A TypeError will be raised if there are any non-string values in iterable, including bytes objects. The separator between elements is the string providing this method.

str.ljust(width[, fillchar])

Return the string left justified in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is an ASCII space). The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

str.lower()

Return a copy of the string with all the cased characters [4] converted to lowercase.

The lowercasing algorithm used is described in section 3.13 of the Unicode Standard.

str.lstrip([chars])

Return a copy of the string with leading characters removed. The chars argument is a string specifying the set of characters to be removed. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing whitespace. The chars argument is not a prefix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> '   spacious   '.lstrip()
'spacious   '
>>> 'www.example.com'.lstrip('cmowz.')
'example.com'

static str.maketrans(x[, y[, z]])

This static method returns a translation table usable for str.translate().

If there is only one argument, it must be a dictionary mapping Unicode ordinals (integers) or characters (strings of length 1) to Unicode ordinals, strings (of arbitrary lengths) or None. Character keys will then be converted to ordinals.

If there are two arguments, they must be strings of equal length, and in the resulting dictionary, each character in x will be mapped to the character at the same position in y. If there is a third argument, it must be a string, whose characters will be mapped to None in the result.

str.partition(sep)

Split the string at the first occurrence of sep, and return a 3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator itself, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not found, return a 3-tuple containing the string itself, followed by two empty strings.

str.replace(old, new[, count])

Return a copy of the string with all occurrences of substring old replaced by new. If the optional argument count is given, only the first count occurrences are replaced.

str.rfind(sub[, start[, end]])

Return the highest index in the string where substring sub is found, such that sub is contained within s[start:end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Return -1 on failure.

str.rindex(sub[, start[, end]])

Like rfind() but raises ValueError when the substring sub is not found.

str.rjust(width[, fillchar])

Return the string right justified in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is an ASCII space). The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

str.rpartition(sep)

Split the string at the last occurrence of sep, and return a 3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator itself, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not found, return a 3-tuple containing two empty strings, followed by the string itself.

str.rsplit(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done, the rightmost ones. If sep is not specified or None, any whitespace string is a separator. Except for splitting from the right, rsplit() behaves like split() which is described in detail below.

str.rstrip([chars])

Return a copy of the string with trailing characters removed. The chars argument is a string specifying the set of characters to be removed. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing whitespace. The chars argument is not a suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> '   spacious   '.rstrip()
'   spacious'
>>> 'mississippi'.rstrip('ipz')
'mississ'

str.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done (thus, the list will have at most maxsplit+1 elements). If maxsplit is not specified or -1, then there is no limit on the number of splits (all possible splits are made).

If sep is given, consecutive delimiters are not grouped together and are deemed to delimit empty strings (for example, '1,,2'.split(',') returns ['1', '', '2']). The sep argument may consist of multiple characters (for example, '1<>2<>3'.split('<>') returns ['1', '2', '3']). Splitting an empty string with a specified separator returns [''].

For example:

>>> '1,2,3'.split(',')
['1', '2', '3']
>>> '1,2,3'.split(',', maxsplit=1)
['1', '2,3']
>>> '1,2,,3,'.split(',')
['1', '2', '', '3', '']

If sep is not specified or is None, a different splitting algorithm is applied: runs of consecutive whitespace are regarded as a single separator, and the result will contain no empty strings at the start or end if the string has leading or trailing whitespace. Consequently, splitting an empty string or a string consisting of just whitespace with a None separator returns [].

For example:

>>> '1 2 3'.split()
['1', '2', '3']
>>> '1 2 3'.split(maxsplit=1)
['1', '2 3']
>>> '   1   2   3   '.split()
['1', '2', '3']

str.splitlines([keepends])

Return a list of the lines in the string, breaking at line boundaries. Line breaks are not included in the resulting list unless keepends is given and true.

This method splits on the following line boundaries. In particular, the boundaries are a superset of universal newlines.

Representation	Description
\n	Line Feed
\r	Carriage Return
\r\n	Carriage Return + Line Feed
\v or \x0b	Line Tabulation
\f or \x0c	Form Feed
\x1c	File Separator
\x1d	Group Separator
\x1e	Record Separator
\x85	Next Line (C1 Control Code)
\u2028	Line Separator
\u2029	Paragraph Separator

Changed in version 3.2: \v and \f added to list of line boundaries.

For example:

>>> 'ab c\n\nde fg\rkl\r\n'.splitlines()
['ab c', '', 'de fg', 'kl']
>>> 'ab c\n\nde fg\rkl\r\n'.splitlines(keepends=True)
['ab c\n', '\n', 'de fg\r', 'kl\r\n']

Unlike split() when a delimiter string sep is given, this method returns an empty list for the empty string, and a terminal line break does not result in an extra line:

>>> "".splitlines()
[]
>>> "One line\n".splitlines()
['One line']

For comparison, split('\n') gives:

>>> ''.split('\n')
['']
>>> 'Two lines\n'.split('\n')
['Two lines', '']

str.startswith(prefix[, start[, end]])

Return True if string starts with the prefix, otherwise return False. prefix can also be a tuple of prefixes to look for. With optional start, test string beginning at that position. With optional end, stop comparing string at that position.

str.strip([chars])

Return a copy of the string with the leading and trailing characters removed. The chars argument is a string specifying the set of characters to be removed. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing whitespace. The chars argument is not a prefix or suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> '   spacious   '.strip()
'spacious'
>>> 'www.example.com'.strip('cmowz.')
'example'

The outermost leading and trailing chars argument values are stripped from the string. Characters are removed from the leading end until reaching a string character that is not contained in the set of characters in chars. A similar action takes place on the trailing end. For example:

>>> comment_string = '#....... Section 3.2.1 Issue #32 .......'
>>> comment_string.strip('.#! ')
'Section 3.2.1 Issue #32'

str.swapcase()

Return a copy of the string with uppercase characters converted to lowercase and vice versa. Note that it is not necessarily true that s.swapcase().swapcase() == s.

str.title()

Return a titlecased version of the string where words start with an uppercase character and the remaining characters are lowercase.

For example:

>>> 'Hello world'.title()
'Hello World'

The algorithm uses a simple language-independent definition of a word as groups of consecutive letters. The definition works in many contexts but it means that apostrophes in contractions and possessives form word boundaries, which may not be the desired result:

>>> "they're bill's friends from the UK".title()
"They'Re Bill'S Friends From The Uk"

A workaround for apostrophes can be constructed using regular expressions:

>>> import re
>>> def titlecase(s):
...     return re.sub(r"[A-Za-z]+('[A-Za-z]+)?",
...                   lambda mo: mo.group(0)[0].upper() +
...                              mo.group(0)[1:].lower(),
...                   s)
...
>>> titlecase("they're bill's friends.")
"They're Bill's Friends."

str.translate(table)

Return a copy of the string in which each character has been mapped through the given translation table. The table must be an object that implements indexing via __getitem__(), typically a mapping or sequence. When indexed by a Unicode ordinal (an integer), the table object can do any of the following: return a Unicode ordinal or a string, to map the character to one or more other characters; return None, to delete the character from the return string; or raise a LookupError exception, to map the character to itself.

You can use str.maketrans() to create a translation map from character-to-character mappings in different formats.

See also the codecs module for a more flexible approach to custom character mappings.

str.upper()

Return a copy of the string with all the cased characters [4] converted to uppercase. Note that str.upper().isupper() might be False if s contains uncased characters or if the Unicode category of the resulting character(s) is not “Lu” (Letter, uppercase), but e.g. “Lt” (Letter, titlecase).

The uppercasing algorithm used is described in section 3.13 of the Unicode Standard.

str.zfill(width)

Return a copy of the string left filled with ASCII '0' digits to make a string of length width. A leading sign prefix ('+'/'-') is handled by inserting the padding after the sign character rather than before. The original string is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

For example:

>>> "42".zfill(5)
'00042'
>>> "-42".zfill(5)
'-0042'

4.7.2. printf-style String Formatting

String objects have one unique built-in operation: the % operator (modulo). This is also known as the string formatting or interpolation operator. Given format % values (where format is a string), % conversion specifications in format are replaced with zero or more elements of values. The effect is similar to using the sprintf() in the C language.

If format requires a single argument, values may be a single non-tuple object. [5] Otherwise, values must be a tuple with exactly the number of items specified by the format string, or a single mapping object (for example, a dictionary).

A conversion specifier contains two or more characters and has the following components, which must occur in this order:

1. The '%' character, which marks the start of the specifier.
2. Mapping key (optional), consisting of a parenthesised sequence of characters (for example, (somename)).
3. Conversion flags (optional), which affect the result of some conversion types.
4. Minimum field width (optional). If specified as an '*' (asterisk), the actual width is read from the next element of the tuple in values, and the object to convert comes after the minimum field width and optional precision.
5. Precision (optional), given as a '.' (dot) followed by the precision. If specified as '*' (an asterisk), the actual precision is read from the next element of the tuple in values, and the value to convert comes after the precision.
6. Length modifier (optional).
7. Conversion type.

When the right argument is a dictionary (or other mapping type), then the formats in the string must include a parenthesised mapping key into that dictionary inserted immediately after the '%' character. The mapping key selects the value to be formatted from the mapping. For example:

>>> print('%(language)s has %(number)03d quote types.' %
...       {'language': "Python", "number": 2})
Python has 002 quote types.

In this case no * specifiers may occur in a format (since they require a sequential parameter list).

The conversion flag characters are:

A length modifier (h, l, or L) may be present, but is ignored as it is not necessary for Python – so e.g. %ld is identical to %d.

The conversion types are:

Notes:

1. The alternate form causes a leading octal specifier ('0o') to be inserted before the first digit.

2. The alternate form causes a leading '0x' or '0X' (depending on whether the 'x' or 'X' format was used) to be inserted before the first digit.

3. The alternate form causes the result to always contain a decimal point, even if no digits follow it.

   The precision determines the number of digits after the decimal point and defaults to 6.

4. The alternate form causes the result to always contain a decimal point, and trailing zeroes are not removed as they would otherwise be.

   The precision determines the number of significant digits before and after the decimal point and defaults to 6.

5. If precision is N, the output is truncated to N characters.

6. See PEP 237.

Since Python strings have an explicit length, %s conversions do not assume that '\0' is the end of the string.

4.8.1. Bytes Objects

Bytes objects are immutable sequences of single bytes. Since many major binary protocols are based on the ASCII text encoding, bytes objects offer several methods that are only valid when working with ASCII compatible data and are closely related to string objects in a variety of other ways.

class bytes([source[, encoding[, errors]]])

Firstly, the syntax for bytes literals is largely the same as that for string literals, except that a b prefix is added:

• Single quotes: b'still allows embedded "double" quotes'
• Double quotes: b"still allows embedded 'single' quotes".
• Triple quoted: b'''3 single quotes''', b"""3 double quotes"""

Only ASCII characters are permitted in bytes literals (regardless of the declared source code encoding). Any binary values over 127 must be entered into bytes literals using the appropriate escape sequence.

As with string literals, bytes literals may also use a r prefix to disable processing of escape sequences. See String and Bytes literals for more about the various forms of bytes literal, including supported escape sequences.

While bytes literals and representations are based on ASCII text, bytes objects actually behave like immutable sequences of integers, with each value in the sequence restricted such that 0 <= x < 256 (attempts to violate this restriction will trigger ValueError. This is done deliberately to emphasise that while many binary formats include ASCII based elements and can be usefully manipulated with some text-oriented algorithms, this is not generally the case for arbitrary binary data (blindly applying text processing algorithms to binary data formats that are not ASCII compatible will usually lead to data corruption).

In addition to the literal forms, bytes objects can be created in a number of other ways:

• A zero-filled bytes object of a specified length: bytes(10)
• From an iterable of integers: bytes(range(20))
• Copying existing binary data via the buffer protocol: bytes(obj)

Also see the bytes built-in.

Since 2 hexadecimal digits correspond precisely to a single byte, hexadecimal numbers are a commonly used format for describing binary data. Accordingly, the bytes type has an additional class method to read data in that format:

classmethod fromhex(string)

This bytes class method returns a bytes object, decoding the given string object. The string must contain two hexadecimal digits per byte, with ASCII whitespace being ignored.

>>> bytes.fromhex('2Ef0 F1f2  ')
b'.\xf0\xf1\xf2'

A reverse conversion function exists to transform a bytes object into its hexadecimal representation.

hex()

Return a string object containing two hexadecimal digits for each byte in the instance.

>>> b'\xf0\xf1\xf2'.hex()
'f0f1f2'

New in version 3.5.

Since bytes objects are sequences of integers (akin to a tuple), for a bytes object b, b[0] will be an integer, while b[0:1] will be a bytes object of length 1. (This contrasts with text strings, where both indexing and slicing will produce a string of length 1)

The representation of bytes objects uses the literal format (b'...') since it is often more useful than e.g. bytes([46, 46, 46]). You can always convert a bytes object into a list of integers using list(b).

4.8.2. Bytearray Objects

bytearray objects are a mutable counterpart to bytes objects.

class bytearray([source[, encoding[, errors]]])

There is no dedicated literal syntax for bytearray objects, instead they are always created by calling the constructor:

• Creating an empty instance: bytearray()
• Creating a zero-filled instance with a given length: bytearray(10)
• From an iterable of integers: bytearray(range(20))
• Copying existing binary data via the buffer protocol: bytearray(b'Hi!')

As bytearray objects are mutable, they support the mutable sequence operations in addition to the common bytes and bytearray operations described in Bytes and Bytearray Operations.

Also see the bytearray built-in.

Since 2 hexadecimal digits correspond precisely to a single byte, hexadecimal numbers are a commonly used format for describing binary data. Accordingly, the bytearray type has an additional class method to read data in that format:

classmethod fromhex(string)

This bytearray class method returns bytearray object, decoding the given string object. The string must contain two hexadecimal digits per byte, with ASCII whitespace being ignored.

>>> bytearray.fromhex('2Ef0 F1f2  ')
bytearray(b'.\xf0\xf1\xf2')

A reverse conversion function exists to transform a bytearray object into its hexadecimal representation.

hex()

Return a string object containing two hexadecimal digits for each byte in the instance.

>>> bytearray(b'\xf0\xf1\xf2').hex()
'f0f1f2'

New in version 3.5.

Since bytearray objects are sequences of integers (akin to a list), for a bytearray object b, b[0] will be an integer, while b[0:1] will be a bytearray object of length 1. (This contrasts with text strings, where both indexing and slicing will produce a string of length 1)

The representation of bytearray objects uses the bytes literal format (bytearray(b'...')) since it is often more useful than e.g. bytearray([46, 46, 46]). You can always convert a bytearray object into a list of integers using list(b).

4.8.3. Bytes and Bytearray Operations

Both bytes and bytearray objects support the common sequence operations. They interoperate not just with operands of the same type, but with any bytes-like object. Due to this flexibility, they can be freely mixed in operations without causing errors. However, the return type of the result may depend on the order of operands.

a = "abc"
b = a.replace("a", "f")

a = b"abc"
b = a.replace(b"a", b"f")

Some bytes and bytearray operations assume the use of ASCII compatible binary formats, and hence should be avoided when working with arbitrary binary data. These restrictions are covered below.

The following methods on bytes and bytearray objects can be used with arbitrary binary data.

bytes.count(sub[, start[, end]])

bytearray.count(sub[, start[, end]])

Return the number of non-overlapping occurrences of subsequence sub in the range [start, end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation.

The subsequence to search for may be any bytes-like object or an integer in the range 0 to 255.

Changed in version 3.3: Also accept an integer in the range 0 to 255 as the subsequence.

bytes.decode(encoding="utf-8", errors="strict")

bytearray.decode(encoding="utf-8", errors="strict")

Return a string decoded from the given bytes. Default encoding is 'utf-8'. errors may be given to set a different error handling scheme. The default for errors is 'strict', meaning that encoding errors raise a UnicodeError. Other possible values are 'ignore', 'replace' and any other name registered via codecs.register_error(), see section Error Handlers. For a list of possible encodings, see section Standard Encodings.

Note

Passing the encoding argument to str allows decoding any bytes-like object directly, without needing to make a temporary bytes or bytearray object.

Changed in version 3.1: Added support for keyword arguments.

bytes.endswith(suffix[, start[, end]])

bytearray.endswith(suffix[, start[, end]])

Return True if the binary data ends with the specified suffix, otherwise return False. suffix can also be a tuple of suffixes to look for. With optional start, test beginning at that position. With optional end, stop comparing at that position.

The suffix(es) to search for may be any bytes-like object.

bytes.find(sub[, start[, end]])

bytearray.find(sub[, start[, end]])

Return the lowest index in the data where the subsequence sub is found, such that sub is contained in the slice s[start:end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Return -1 if sub is not found.

The subsequence to search for may be any bytes-like object or an integer in the range 0 to 255.

Note

The find() method should be used only if you need to know the position of sub. To check if sub is a substring or not, use the in operator:

>>> b'Py' in b'Python'
True

Changed in version 3.3: Also accept an integer in the range 0 to 255 as the subsequence.

bytes.index(sub[, start[, end]])

bytearray.index(sub[, start[, end]])

Like find(), but raise ValueError when the subsequence is not found.

The subsequence to search for may be any bytes-like object or an integer in the range 0 to 255.

Changed in version 3.3: Also accept an integer in the range 0 to 255 as the subsequence.

bytes.join(iterable)

bytearray.join(iterable)

Return a bytes or bytearray object which is the concatenation of the binary data sequences in iterable. A TypeError will be raised if there are any values in iterable that are not bytes-like objects, including str objects. The separator between elements is the contents of the bytes or bytearray object providing this method.

static bytes.maketrans(from, to)

static bytearray.maketrans(from, to)

This static method returns a translation table usable for bytes.translate() that will map each character in from into the character at the same position in to; from and to must both be bytes-like objects and have the same length.

New in version 3.1.

bytes.partition(sep)

bytearray.partition(sep)

Split the sequence at the first occurrence of sep, and return a 3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator itself or its bytearray copy, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not found, return a 3-tuple containing a copy of the original sequence, followed by two empty bytes or bytearray objects.

The separator to search for may be any bytes-like object.

bytes.replace(old, new[, count])

bytearray.replace(old, new[, count])

Return a copy of the sequence with all occurrences of subsequence old replaced by new. If the optional argument count is given, only the first count occurrences are replaced.

The subsequence to search for and its replacement may be any bytes-like object.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.rfind(sub[, start[, end]])

bytearray.rfind(sub[, start[, end]])

Return the highest index in the sequence where the subsequence sub is found, such that sub is contained within s[start:end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Return -1 on failure.

The subsequence to search for may be any bytes-like object or an integer in the range 0 to 255.

Changed in version 3.3: Also accept an integer in the range 0 to 255 as the subsequence.

bytes.rindex(sub[, start[, end]])

bytearray.rindex(sub[, start[, end]])

Like rfind() but raises ValueError when the subsequence sub is not found.

The subsequence to search for may be any bytes-like object or an integer in the range 0 to 255.

Changed in version 3.3: Also accept an integer in the range 0 to 255 as the subsequence.

bytes.rpartition(sep)

bytearray.rpartition(sep)

Split the sequence at the last occurrence of sep, and return a 3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator itself or its bytearray copy, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not found, return a 3-tuple containing a copy of the original sequence, followed by two empty bytes or bytearray objects.

The separator to search for may be any bytes-like object.

bytes.startswith(prefix[, start[, end]])

bytearray.startswith(prefix[, start[, end]])

Return True if the binary data starts with the specified prefix, otherwise return False. prefix can also be a tuple of prefixes to look for. With optional start, test beginning at that position. With optional end, stop comparing at that position.

The prefix(es) to search for may be any bytes-like object.

bytes.translate(table, delete=b'')

bytearray.translate(table, delete=b'')

Return a copy of the bytes or bytearray object where all bytes occurring in the optional argument delete are removed, and the remaining bytes have been mapped through the given translation table, which must be a bytes object of length 256.

You can use the bytes.maketrans() method to create a translation table.

Set the table argument to None for translations that only delete characters:

>>> b'read this short text'.translate(None, b'aeiou')
b'rd ths shrt txt'

Changed in version 3.6: delete is now supported as a keyword argument.

The following methods on bytes and bytearray objects have default behaviours that assume the use of ASCII compatible binary formats, but can still be used with arbitrary binary data by passing appropriate arguments. Note that all of the bytearray methods in this section do not operate in place, and instead produce new objects.

bytes.center(width[, fillbyte])

bytearray.center(width[, fillbyte])

Return a copy of the object centered in a sequence of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillbyte (default is an ASCII space). For bytes objects, the original sequence is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.ljust(width[, fillbyte])

bytearray.ljust(width[, fillbyte])

Return a copy of the object left justified in a sequence of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillbyte (default is an ASCII space). For bytes objects, the original sequence is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.lstrip([chars])

bytearray.lstrip([chars])

Return a copy of the sequence with specified leading bytes removed. The chars argument is a binary sequence specifying the set of byte values to be removed - the name refers to the fact this method is usually used with ASCII characters. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing ASCII whitespace. The chars argument is not a prefix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> b'   spacious   '.lstrip()
b'spacious   '
>>> b'www.example.com'.lstrip(b'cmowz.')
b'example.com'

The binary sequence of byte values to remove may be any bytes-like object.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.rjust(width[, fillbyte])

bytearray.rjust(width[, fillbyte])

Return a copy of the object right justified in a sequence of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillbyte (default is an ASCII space). For bytes objects, the original sequence is returned if width is less than or equal to len(s).

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.rsplit(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

bytearray.rsplit(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

Split the binary sequence into subsequences of the same type, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done, the rightmost ones. If sep is not specified or None, any subsequence consisting solely of ASCII whitespace is a separator. Except for splitting from the right, rsplit() behaves like split() which is described in detail below.

bytes.rstrip([chars])

bytearray.rstrip([chars])

Return a copy of the sequence with specified trailing bytes removed. The chars argument is a binary sequence specifying the set of byte values to be removed - the name refers to the fact this method is usually used with ASCII characters. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing ASCII whitespace. The chars argument is not a suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> b'   spacious   '.rstrip()
b'   spacious'
>>> b'mississippi'.rstrip(b'ipz')
b'mississ'

The binary sequence of byte values to remove may be any bytes-like object.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

bytearray.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

Split the binary sequence into subsequences of the same type, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given and non-negative, at most maxsplit splits are done (thus, the list will have at most maxsplit+1 elements). If maxsplit is not specified or is -1, then there is no limit on the number of splits (all possible splits are made).

If sep is given, consecutive delimiters are not grouped together and are deemed to delimit empty subsequences (for example, b'1,,2'.split(b',') returns [b'1', b'', b'2']). The sep argument may consist of a multibyte sequence (for example, b'1<>2<>3'.split(b'<>') returns [b'1', b'2', b'3']). Splitting an empty sequence with a specified separator returns [b''] or [bytearray(b'')] depending on the type of object being split. The sep argument may be any bytes-like object.

For example:

>>> b'1,2,3'.split(b',')
[b'1', b'2', b'3']
>>> b'1,2,3'.split(b',', maxsplit=1)
[b'1', b'2,3']
>>> b'1,2,,3,'.split(b',')
[b'1', b'2', b'', b'3', b'']

If sep is not specified or is None, a different splitting algorithm is applied: runs of consecutive ASCII whitespace are regarded as a single separator, and the result will contain no empty strings at the start or end if the sequence has leading or trailing whitespace. Consequently, splitting an empty sequence or a sequence consisting solely of ASCII whitespace without a specified separator returns [].

For example:

>>> b'1 2 3'.split()
[b'1', b'2', b'3']
>>> b'1 2 3'.split(maxsplit=1)
[b'1', b'2 3']
>>> b'   1   2   3   '.split()
[b'1', b'2', b'3']

bytes.strip([chars])

bytearray.strip([chars])

Return a copy of the sequence with specified leading and trailing bytes removed. The chars argument is a binary sequence specifying the set of byte values to be removed - the name refers to the fact this method is usually used with ASCII characters. If omitted or None, the chars argument defaults to removing ASCII whitespace. The chars argument is not a prefix or suffix; rather, all combinations of its values are stripped:

>>> b'   spacious   '.strip()
b'spacious'
>>> b'www.example.com'.strip(b'cmowz.')
b'example'

The binary sequence of byte values to remove may be any bytes-like object.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

The following methods on bytes and bytearray objects assume the use of ASCII compatible binary formats and should not be applied to arbitrary binary data. Note that all of the bytearray methods in this section do not operate in place, and instead produce new objects.

bytes.capitalize()

bytearray.capitalize()

Return a copy of the sequence with each byte interpreted as an ASCII character, and the first byte capitalized and the rest lowercased. Non-ASCII byte values are passed through unchanged.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.expandtabs(tabsize=8)

bytearray.expandtabs(tabsize=8)

Return a copy of the sequence where all ASCII tab characters are replaced by one or more ASCII spaces, depending on the current column and the given tab size. Tab positions occur every tabsize bytes (default is 8, giving tab positions at columns 0, 8, 16 and so on). To expand the sequence, the current column is set to zero and the sequence is examined byte by byte. If the byte is an ASCII tab character (b'\t'), one or more space characters are inserted in the result until the current column is equal to the next tab position. (The tab character itself is not copied.) If the current byte is an ASCII newline (b'\n') or carriage return (b'\r'), it is copied and the current column is reset to zero. Any other byte value is copied unchanged and the current column is incremented by one regardless of how the byte value is represented when printed:

>>> b'01\t012\t0123\t01234'.expandtabs()
b'01      012     0123    01234'
>>> b'01\t012\t0123\t01234'.expandtabs(4)
b'01  012 0123    01234'

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.isalnum()

bytearray.isalnum()

Return true if all bytes in the sequence are alphabetical ASCII characters or ASCII decimal digits and the sequence is not empty, false otherwise. Alphabetic ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'. ASCII decimal digits are those byte values in the sequence b'0123456789'.

For example:

>>> b'ABCabc1'.isalnum()
True
>>> b'ABC abc1'.isalnum()
False

bytes.isalpha()

bytearray.isalpha()

Return true if all bytes in the sequence are alphabetic ASCII characters and the sequence is not empty, false otherwise. Alphabetic ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

For example:

>>> b'ABCabc'.isalpha()
True
>>> b'ABCabc1'.isalpha()
False

bytes.isdigit()

bytearray.isdigit()

Return true if all bytes in the sequence are ASCII decimal digits and the sequence is not empty, false otherwise. ASCII decimal digits are those byte values in the sequence b'0123456789'.

For example:

>>> b'1234'.isdigit()
True
>>> b'1.23'.isdigit()
False

bytes.islower()

bytearray.islower()

Return true if there is at least one lowercase ASCII character in the sequence and no uppercase ASCII characters, false otherwise.

For example:

>>> b'hello world'.islower()
True
>>> b'Hello world'.islower()
False

Lowercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'. Uppercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

bytes.isspace()

bytearray.isspace()

Return true if all bytes in the sequence are ASCII whitespace and the sequence is not empty, false otherwise. ASCII whitespace characters are those byte values in the sequence b' \t\n\r\x0b\f' (space, tab, newline, carriage return, vertical tab, form feed).

bytes.istitle()

bytearray.istitle()

Return true if the sequence is ASCII titlecase and the sequence is not empty, false otherwise. See bytes.title() for more details on the definition of “titlecase”.

For example:

>>> b'Hello World'.istitle()
True
>>> b'Hello world'.istitle()
False

bytes.isupper()

bytearray.isupper()

Return true if there is at least one uppercase alphabetic ASCII character in the sequence and no lowercase ASCII characters, false otherwise.

For example:

>>> b'HELLO WORLD'.isupper()
True
>>> b'Hello world'.isupper()
False

Lowercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'. Uppercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

bytes.lower()

bytearray.lower()

Return a copy of the sequence with all the uppercase ASCII characters converted to their corresponding lowercase counterpart.

For example:

>>> b'Hello World'.lower()
b'hello world'

Lowercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'. Uppercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.splitlines(keepends=False)

bytearray.splitlines(keepends=False)

Return a list of the lines in the binary sequence, breaking at ASCII line boundaries. This method uses the universal newlines approach to splitting lines. Line breaks are not included in the resulting list unless keepends is given and true.

For example:

>>> b'ab c\n\nde fg\rkl\r\n'.splitlines()
[b'ab c', b'', b'de fg', b'kl']
>>> b'ab c\n\nde fg\rkl\r\n'.splitlines(keepends=True)
[b'ab c\n', b'\n', b'de fg\r', b'kl\r\n']

Unlike split() when a delimiter string sep is given, this method returns an empty list for the empty string, and a terminal line break does not result in an extra line:

>>> b"".split(b'\n'), b"Two lines\n".split(b'\n')
([b''], [b'Two lines', b''])
>>> b"".splitlines(), b"One line\n".splitlines()
([], [b'One line'])

bytes.swapcase()

bytearray.swapcase()

Return a copy of the sequence with all the lowercase ASCII characters converted to their corresponding uppercase counterpart and vice-versa.

For example:

>>> b'Hello World'.swapcase()
b'hELLO wORLD'

Lowercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'. Uppercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

Unlike str.swapcase(), it is always the case that bin.swapcase().swapcase() == bin for the binary versions. Case conversions are symmetrical in ASCII, even though that is not generally true for arbitrary Unicode code points.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.title()

bytearray.title()

Return a titlecased version of the binary sequence where words start with an uppercase ASCII character and the remaining characters are lowercase. Uncased byte values are left unmodified.

For example:

>>> b'Hello world'.title()
b'Hello World'

Lowercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'. Uppercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'. All other byte values are uncased.

The algorithm uses a simple language-independent definition of a word as groups of consecutive letters. The definition works in many contexts but it means that apostrophes in contractions and possessives form word boundaries, which may not be the desired result:

>>> b"they're bill's friends from the UK".title()
b"They'Re Bill'S Friends From The Uk"

A workaround for apostrophes can be constructed using regular expressions:

>>> import re
>>> def titlecase(s):
...     return re.sub(rb"[A-Za-z]+('[A-Za-z]+)?",
...                   lambda mo: mo.group(0)[0:1].upper() +
...                              mo.group(0)[1:].lower(),
...                   s)
...
>>> titlecase(b"they're bill's friends.")
b"They're Bill's Friends."

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.upper()

bytearray.upper()

Return a copy of the sequence with all the lowercase ASCII characters converted to their corresponding uppercase counterpart.

For example:

>>> b'Hello World'.upper()
b'HELLO WORLD'

Lowercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'. Uppercase ASCII characters are those byte values in the sequence b'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

bytes.zfill(width)

bytearray.zfill(width)

Return a copy of the sequence left filled with ASCII b'0' digits to make a sequence of length width. A leading sign prefix (b'+'/ b'-' is handled by inserting the padding after the sign character rather than before. For bytes objects, the original sequence is returned if width is less than or equal to len(seq).

For example:

>>> b"42".zfill(5)
b'00042'
>>> b"-42".zfill(5)
b'-0042'

Note

The bytearray version of this method does not operate in place - it always produces a new object, even if no changes were made.

4.8.4. printf-style Bytes Formatting

Bytes objects (bytes/bytearray) have one unique built-in operation: the % operator (modulo). This is also known as the bytes formatting or interpolation operator. Given format % values (where format is a bytes object), % conversion specifications in format are replaced with zero or more elements of values. The effect is similar to using the sprintf() in the C language.

If format requires a single argument, values may be a single non-tuple object. [5] Otherwise, values must be a tuple with exactly the number of items specified by the format bytes object, or a single mapping object (for example, a dictionary).

A conversion specifier contains two or more characters and has the following components, which must occur in this order:

1. The '%' character, which marks the start of the specifier.
2. Mapping key (optional), consisting of a parenthesised sequence of characters (for example, (somename)).
3. Conversion flags (optional), which affect the result of some conversion types.
4. Minimum field width (optional). If specified as an '*' (asterisk), the actual width is read from the next element of the tuple in values, and the object to convert comes after the minimum field width and optional precision.
5. Precision (optional), given as a '.' (dot) followed by the precision. If specified as '*' (an asterisk), the actual precision is read from the next element of the tuple in values, and the value to convert comes after the precision.
6. Length modifier (optional).
7. Conversion type.

When the right argument is a dictionary (or other mapping type), then the formats in the bytes object must include a parenthesised mapping key into that dictionary inserted immediately after the '%' character. The mapping key selects the value to be formatted from the mapping. For example:

>>> print(b'%(language)s has %(number)03d quote types.' %
...       {b'language': b"Python", b"number": 2})
b'Python has 002 quote types.'

In this case no * specifiers may occur in a format (since they require a sequential parameter list).

The conversion flag characters are:

A length modifier (h, l, or L) may be present, but is ignored as it is not necessary for Python – so e.g. %ld is identical to %d.

The conversion types are:

Notes:

1. The alternate form causes a leading octal specifier ('0o') to be inserted before the first digit.

2. The alternate form causes a leading '0x' or '0X' (depending on whether the 'x' or 'X' format was used) to be inserted before the first digit.

3. The alternate form causes the result to always contain a decimal point, even if no digits follow it.

   The precision determines the number of digits after the decimal point and defaults to 6.

4. The alternate form causes the result to always contain a decimal point, and trailing zeroes are not removed as they would otherwise be.

   The precision determines the number of significant digits before and after the decimal point and defaults to 6.

5. If precision is N, the output is truncated to N characters.

6. b'%s' is deprecated, but will not be removed during the 3.x series.

7. b'%r' is deprecated, but will not be removed during the 3.x series.

8. See PEP 237.

4.8.5. Memory Views

memoryview objects allow Python code to access the internal data of an object that supports the buffer protocol without copying.

class memoryview(obj)

Create a memoryview that references obj. obj must support the buffer protocol. Built-in objects that support the buffer protocol include bytes and bytearray.

A memoryview has the notion of an element, which is the atomic memory unit handled by the originating object obj. For many simple types such as bytes and bytearray, an element is a single byte, but other types such as array.array may have bigger elements.

len(view) is equal to the length of tolist. If view.ndim = 0, the length is 1. If view.ndim = 1, the length is equal to the number of elements in the view. For higher dimensions, the length is equal to the length of the nested list representation of the view. The itemsize attribute will give you the number of bytes in a single element.

A memoryview supports slicing and indexing to expose its data. One-dimensional slicing will result in a subview:

>>> v = memoryview(b'abcefg')
>>> v[1]
98
>>> v[-1]
103
>>> v[1:4]
<memory at 0x7f3ddc9f4350>
>>> bytes(v[1:4])
b'bce'

If format is one of the native format specifiers from the struct module, indexing with an integer or a tuple of integers is also supported and returns a single element with the correct type. One-dimensional memoryviews can be indexed with an integer or a one-integer tuple. Multi-dimensional memoryviews can be indexed with tuples of exactly ndim integers where ndim is the number of dimensions. Zero-dimensional memoryviews can be indexed with the empty tuple.

Here is an example with a non-byte format:

>>> import array
>>> a = array.array('l', [-11111111, 22222222, -33333333, 44444444])
>>> m = memoryview(a)
>>> m[0]
-11111111
>>> m[-1]
44444444
>>> m[::2].tolist()
[-11111111, -33333333]

If the underlying object is writable, the memoryview supports one-dimensional slice assignment. Resizing is not allowed:

>>> data = bytearray(b'abcefg')
>>> v = memoryview(data)
>>> v.readonly
False
>>> v[0] = ord(b'z')
>>> data
bytearray(b'zbcefg')
>>> v[1:4] = b'123'
>>> data
bytearray(b'z123fg')
>>> v[2:3] = b'spam'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: memoryview assignment: lvalue and rvalue have different structures
>>> v[2:6] = b'spam'
>>> data
bytearray(b'z1spam')

One-dimensional memoryviews of hashable (read-only) types with formats ‘B’, ‘b’ or ‘c’ are also hashable. The hash is defined as hash(m) == hash(m.tobytes()):

>>> v = memoryview(b'abcefg')
>>> hash(v) == hash(b'abcefg')
True
>>> hash(v[2:4]) == hash(b'ce')
True
>>> hash(v[::-2]) == hash(b'abcefg'[::-2])
True

Changed in version 3.3: One-dimensional memoryviews can now be sliced. One-dimensional memoryviews with formats ‘B’, ‘b’ or ‘c’ are now hashable.

Changed in version 3.4: memoryview is now registered automatically with collections.abc.Sequence

Changed in version 3.5: memoryviews can now be indexed with tuple of integers.

memoryview has several methods:

__eq__(exporter)

A memoryview and a PEP 3118 exporter are equal if their shapes are equivalent and if all corresponding values are equal when the operands’ respective format codes are interpreted using struct syntax.

For the subset of struct format strings currently supported by tolist(), v and w are equal if v.tolist() == w.tolist():

>>> import array
>>> a = array.array('I', [1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
>>> b = array.array('d', [1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0])
>>> c = array.array('b', [5, 3, 1])
>>> x = memoryview(a)
>>> y = memoryview(b)
>>> x == a == y == b
True
>>> x.tolist() == a.tolist() == y.tolist() == b.tolist()
True
>>> z = y[::-2]
>>> z == c
True
>>> z.tolist() == c.tolist()
True

If either format string is not supported by the struct module, then the objects will always compare as unequal (even if the format strings and buffer contents are identical):

>>> from ctypes import BigEndianStructure, c_long
>>> class BEPoint(BigEndianStructure):
...     _fields_ = [("x", c_long), ("y", c_long)]
...
>>> point = BEPoint(100, 200)
>>> a = memoryview(point)
>>> b = memoryview(point)
>>> a == point
False
>>> a == b
False

Note that, as with floating point numbers, v is w does not imply v == w for memoryview objects.

Changed in version 3.3: Previous versions compared the raw memory disregarding the item format and the logical array structure.

tobytes()

Return the data in the buffer as a bytestring. This is equivalent to calling the bytes constructor on the memoryview.

>>> m = memoryview(b"abc")
>>> m.tobytes()
b'abc'
>>> bytes(m)
b'abc'

For non-contiguous arrays the result is equal to the flattened list representation with all elements converted to bytes. tobytes() supports all format strings, including those that are not in struct module syntax.

hex()

Return a string object containing two hexadecimal digits for each byte in the buffer.

>>> m = memoryview(b"abc")
>>> m.hex()
'616263'

New in version 3.5.

tolist()

Return the data in the buffer as a list of elements.

>>> memoryview(b'abc').tolist()
[97, 98, 99]
>>> import array
>>> a = array.array('d', [1.1, 2.2, 3.3])
>>> m = memoryview(a)
>>> m.tolist()
[1.1, 2.2, 3.3]

Changed in version 3.3: tolist() now supports all single character native formats in struct module syntax as well as multi-dimensional representations.

release()

Release the underlying buffer exposed by the memoryview object. Many objects take special actions when a view is held on them (for example, a bytearray would temporarily forbid resizing); therefore, calling release() is handy to remove these restrictions (and free any dangling resources) as soon as possible.

After this method has been called, any further operation on the view raises a ValueError (except release() itself which can be called multiple times):

>>> m = memoryview(b'abc')
>>> m.release()
>>> m[0]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: operation forbidden on released memoryview object

The context management protocol can be used for a similar effect, using the with statement:

>>> with memoryview(b'abc') as m:
...     m[0]
...
97
>>> m[0]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: operation forbidden on released memoryview object

New in version 3.2.

cast(format[, shape])

Cast a memoryview to a new format or shape. shape defaults to [byte_length//new_itemsize], which means that the result view will be one-dimensional. The return value is a new memoryview, but the buffer itself is not copied. Supported casts are 1D -> C-contiguous and C-contiguous -> 1D.

The destination format is restricted to a single element native format in struct syntax. One of the formats must be a byte format (‘B’, ‘b’ or ‘c’). The byte length of the result must be the same as the original length.

Cast 1D/long to 1D/unsigned bytes:

>>> import array
>>> a = array.array('l', [1,2,3])
>>> x = memoryview(a)
>>> x.format
'l'
>>> x.itemsize
8
>>> len(x)
3
>>> x.nbytes
24
>>> y = x.cast('B')
>>> y.format
'B'
>>> y.itemsize
1
>>> len(y)
24
>>> y.nbytes
24

Cast 1D/unsigned bytes to 1D/char:

>>> b = bytearray(b'zyz')
>>> x = memoryview(b)
>>> x[0] = b'a'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: memoryview: invalid value for format "B"
>>> y = x.cast('c')
>>> y[0] = b'a'
>>> b
bytearray(b'ayz')

Cast 1D/bytes to 3D/ints to 1D/signed char:

>>> import struct
>>> buf = struct.pack("i"*12, *list(range(12)))
>>> x = memoryview(buf)
>>> y = x.cast('i', shape=[2,2,3])
>>> y.tolist()
[[[0, 1, 2], [3, 4, 5]], [[6, 7, 8], [9, 10, 11]]]
>>> y.format
'i'
>>> y.itemsize
4
>>> len(y)
2
>>> y.nbytes
48
>>> z = y.cast('b')
>>> z.format
'b'
>>> z.itemsize
1
>>> len(z)
48
>>> z.nbytes
48

Cast 1D/unsigned char to 2D/unsigned long:

>>> buf = struct.pack("L"*6, *list(range(6)))
>>> x = memoryview(buf)
>>> y = x.cast('L', shape=[2,3])
>>> len(y)
2
>>> y.nbytes
48
>>> y.tolist()
[[0, 1, 2], [3, 4, 5]]

New in version 3.3.

Changed in version 3.5: The source format is no longer restricted when casting to a byte view.

There are also several readonly attributes available:

obj

The underlying object of the memoryview:

>>> b  = bytearray(b'xyz')
>>> m = memoryview(b)
>>> m.obj is b
True

New in version 3.3.

nbytes

nbytes == product(shape) * itemsize == len(m.tobytes()). This is the amount of space in bytes that the array would use in a contiguous representation. It is not necessarily equal to len(m):

>>> import array
>>> a = array.array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])
>>> m = memoryview(a)
>>> len(m)
5
>>> m.nbytes
20
>>> y = m[::2]
>>> len(y)
3
>>> y.nbytes
12
>>> len(y.tobytes())
12

Multi-dimensional arrays:

>>> import struct
>>> buf = struct.pack("d"*12, *[1.5*x for x in range(12)])
>>> x = memoryview(buf)
>>> y = x.cast('d', shape=[3,4])
>>> y.tolist()
[[0.0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5], [6.0, 7.5, 9.0, 10.5], [12.0, 13.5, 15.0, 16.5]]
>>> len(y)
3
>>> y.nbytes
96

New in version 3.3.

readonly

A bool indicating whether the memory is read only.

format

A string containing the format (in struct module style) for each element in the view. A memoryview can be created from exporters with arbitrary format strings, but some methods (e.g. tolist()) are restricted to native single element formats.

Changed in version 3.3: format 'B' is now handled according to the struct module syntax. This means that memoryview(b'abc')[0] == b'abc'[0] == 97.

itemsize

The size in bytes of each element of the memoryview:

>>> import array, struct
>>> m = memoryview(array.array('H', [32000, 32001, 32002]))
>>> m.itemsize
2
>>> m[0]
32000
>>> struct.calcsize('H') == m.itemsize
True

ndim

An integer indicating how many dimensions of a multi-dimensional array the memory represents.

shape

A tuple of integers the length of ndim giving the shape of the memory as an N-dimensional array.

Changed in version 3.3: An empty tuple instead of None when ndim = 0.

strides

A tuple of integers the length of ndim giving the size in bytes to access each element for each dimension of the array.

Changed in version 3.3: An empty tuple instead of None when ndim = 0.

suboffsets

Used internally for PIL-style arrays. The value is informational only.

c_contiguous

A bool indicating whether the memory is C-contiguous.

New in version 3.3.

f_contiguous

A bool indicating whether the memory is Fortran contiguous.

New in version 3.3.

contiguous

A bool indicating whether the memory is contiguous.

New in version 3.3.