Python Checking a string's first and last character

Question

can anyone please explain what is wrong with this code?

str1=\'\"xxx\"\'
print str1
if str1[:1].startswith(\'\"\'):
    if str1[:-1].endswith(\'\"\'):
               


        

Answer 1

You are testing against the string minus the last character:

>>> '"xxx"'[:-1]
'"xxx'

Note how the last character, the ", is not part of the output of the slice.

I think you wanted just to test against the last character; use [-1:] to slice for just the last element.

However, there is no need to slice here; just use str.startswith() and str.endswith() directly.