Why doesn't calling a Python string method do anything unless you assign its output?

Question

I try to do a simple string replacement, but I don\'t know why it doesn\'t seem to work:

X = \"hello world\"
X.rep         


        

Answer 1

All string functions as lower, upper, strip are returning a string without modifying the original. If you try to modify a string, as you might think well it is an iterable, it will fail.

x = 'hello'
x[0] = 'i' #'str' object does not support item assignment

There is a good reading about the importance of strings being immutable: Why are Python strings immutable? Best practices for using them

Answer 2

This is because strings are immutable in Python.

Which means that X.replace("hello","goodbye") returns a copy of X with replacements made. Because of that you need replace this line:

X.replace("hello", "goodbye")

with this line:

X = X.replace("hello", "goodbye")

More broadly, this is true for all Python string methods that change a string's content "in-place", e.g. replace,strip,translate,lower/upper,join,...

You must assign their output to something if you want to use it and not throw it away, e.g.

X  = X.strip(' \t')
X2 = X.translate(...)
Y  = X.lower()
Z  = X.upper()
A  = X.join(':')
B  = X.capitalize()
C  = X.casefold()

and so on.