Get the First or Last N Characters of a Python String

Use text[:n] to get the first n characters of a Python string and text[-n:] to get the last n characters:

text = "Uncopyrightable"

print(text[:5])   # Uncop
print(text[-5:])  # table

Python slicing does not raise an error when n is longer than the string. It returns all available characters.

Get the first N characters

The slice text[:n] starts at the beginning and stops before index n:

text = "Python"

print(text[:1])   # P
print(text[:3])   # Pyt
print(text[:10])  # Python

The stop position is exclusive. text[:3] therefore returns the characters at indexes 0, 1 and 2.

Get the last N characters

Use a negative starting index and leave the stop position empty:

text = "Python"

print(text[-1:])  # n
print(text[-3:])  # hon
print(text[-10:]) # Python

The colon matters. text[-3] returns one character, while text[-3:] returns the final three characters.

What happens when N is zero?

The first-zero slice is empty:

text = "Python"
print(text[:0])  # ''

Be careful with the last-zero form:

print(text[-0:])  # Python

Python treats -0 as 0, so text[-0:] means text[0:] and returns the whole string. Handle zero explicitly when n may be zero:

last_n = text[-n:] if n else ""

Get both the first and last N characters

Concatenate the two slices:

text = "Uncopyrightable"
n = 3

result = text[:n] + text[-n:]
print(result)  # Uncble

If the slices overlap because n is more than half the string length, characters will appear twice. Cap n or decide how overlapping input should behave for your application.

Slice syntax

A slice has the form:

text[start:stop:step]

• start is included.
• stop is excluded.
• step controls how many positions to move each time.
• Omitting start begins at the start of the string.
• Omitting stop continues to the end.

For one character rather than several, see how to get the first character or last character of a Python string.