Delete last character in string (Python)

python string loops ends-with
Philip McQuitty picture Philip McQuitty · Jan 4, 2015 · Viewed 15.4k times · Source

I have a list filled with string objects. If the string object ends in a W, I want to delete/remove the W from the string. Also, in the only case that the string equals UW I do not want to remove the W.

I have tried this: 

masterAbrevs = []

for subject in masterAbrevs:
    if subject.endswith("W"):
        subject =  subject[:-1]

After printing masterAbrevs it appears that my code is doing absolutely nothing. kindly help.

Answer

sgarza62 picture sgarza62 · Jan 4, 2015

The problem is that you're never making the change to the element in the list; you're making the change to the variable holding the element returned from the list.

Try this instead:

masterAbrevs = ['ASW', 'AS', 'UW']

for i, e in enumerate(masterAbrevs):
    if (e[-1] == 'W') and (e != 'UW'):
        masterAbrevs[i] = masterAbrevs[i][:-1]

# results in ['AS', 'AS', 'UW']

Related questions

Does Python have a string 'contains' substring method?

I'm looking for a string.contains or string.indexof method in Python. I want to do: if not somestring.contains("blah"): continue

Read More
How to read a file line-by-line into a list?

How do I read every line of a file in Python and store each line as an element in a list? I want to read the file line by line and append each line to the end of the list.

Read More
Converting integer to string in Python

I want to convert an integer to a string in Python. I am typecasting it in vain: d = 15 d.str() When I try to convert it to string, it's showing an error like int doesn't have any attribute called str.

Read More