How can I copy a Python string?

Question

I do this:

a = \'hello\'

And now I just want an independent copy of a:

import copy

b = str(a)
c = a[:]
d = a          


        

Answer 1

To put it a different way "id()" is not what you care about. You want to know if the variable name can be modified without harming the source variable name.

>>> a = 'hello'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
>>> b = a[:]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
>>> c = a                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
>>> b += ' world'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
>>> c += ', bye'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
>>> a                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
'hello'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
>>> b                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
'hello world'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
>>> c                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
'hello, bye'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

If you're used to C, then these are like pointer variables except you can't de-reference them to modify what they point at, but id() will tell you where they currently point.

The problem for python programmers comes when you consider deeper structures like lists or dicts:

>>> o={'a': 10}                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
>>> x=o                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
>>> y=o.copy()                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
>>> x['a'] = 20                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
>>> y['a'] = 30                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
>>> o                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
{'a': 20}                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
>>> x                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
{'a': 20}                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
>>> y                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
{'a': 30}                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Here o and x refer to the same dict o['a'] and x['a'], and that dict is "mutable" in the sense that you can change the value for key 'a'. That's why "y" needs to be a copy and y['a'] can refer to something else.