How to take the nth digit of a number in python

Question

I want to take the nth digit from an N digit number in python. For example:

number = 9876543210
i = 4
number[i] # should return 6

How can

Answer 1

I would recommend adding a boolean check for the magnitude of the number. I'm converting a high milliseconds value to datetime. I have numbers from 2 to 200,000,200 so 0 is a valid output. The function as @Chris Mueller has it will return 0 even if number is smaller than 10**n.

def get_digit(number, n):
    return number // 10**n % 10

get_digit(4231, 5)
# 0

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def get_digit(number, n):
    if number - 10**n < 0:
        return False
    return number // 10**n % 10

get_digit(4321, 5)
# False

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You do have to be careful when checking the boolean state of this return value. To allow 0 as a valid return value, you cannot just use if get_digit:. You have to use if get_digit is False: to keep 0 from behaving as a false value.