Changing one character in a string

Question

What is the easiest way in Python to replace a character in a string?

For example:

text = \"abcdefg\";
text[1] = \"Z\";
           ^

Answer 1

Python strings are immutable, you change them by making a copy.
The easiest way to do what you want is probably:

text = "Z" + text[1:]

The text[1:] returns the string in text from position 1 to the end, positions count from 0 so '1' is the second character.

edit: You can use the same string slicing technique for any part of the string

text = text[:1] + "Z" + text[2:]

Or if the letter only appears once you can use the search and replace technique suggested below