Iterate over characters of a string in Python

In this article, we will learn how to iterate over the characters of a string in Python. There are several methods to do this, but we will focus on the most efficient one. The simplest way is to use a loop. Let’s explore this approach.

Using for loop

The simplest way to iterate over the characters in a string is by using a for loop. This method is efficient and easy to understand.

s = "hello" for char in s: print(char) 

h e l l o 

Explanation: for char in s: This line loops through the string s, with char representing each character in s one by one.

Using enumerate for Index Access

If we need both the character and its index then enumerate() is a great choice. It returns both values in each iteration.

s = "hello" for i, char in enumerate(s): print(f"Index {i}: {char}") 

Index 0: h Index 1: e Index 2: l Index 3: l Index 4: o 

Explanation:

• enumerate(s) provides both the index i and the character char.
• The print function uses a formatted string, where the f before the string allows us to include variables directly within it using curly braces {}.