Methods for Real Text

Scenario: Names arrive with extra spaces and inconsistent capitalization.

New words, in plain English

• Method - a function reached through a value, such as text.strip()
• Delimiter - text separating pieces
• Membership - whether one value occurs inside another

Useful methods include strip, lower, upper, title, replace, startswith, endswith, split, and join. Use in for membership.

Analogy: A Python program is like a clear set of instructions for a careful helper: names label things, indentation groups steps, and errors explain where the helper became confused.

A small, real example

raw = "  api,db,cache  "
services = raw.strip().split(",")
print(" | ".join(services))

Tip: Strings do not change in place, so store or use the returned string.

Goal: Practice this idea in the py-string-manipulation challenge at /labs/python. Fix the broken program, run it yourself, then use check to prove the real end state.