Python String Methods | Set 3 (strip, lstrip, rstrip, min, max, maketrans, translate, replace & expandtabs())

Some of the string methods are covered in the below sets.
String Methods Part- 1 
String Methods Part- 2
More methods are discussed in this article
1. strip():- This method is used to delete all the leading and trailing characters mentioned in its argument.
2. lstrip():- This method is used to delete all the leading characters mentioned in its argument.
3. rstrip():- This method is used to delete all the trailing characters mentioned in its argument.
 

# Python code to demonstrate working of 
# strip(), lstrip() and rstrip()
str = "---geeksforgeeks---"

# using strip() to delete all '-'
print ( " String after stripping all '-' is : ", end="")
print ( str.strip('-') )

# using lstrip() to delete all trailing '-'
print ( " String after stripping all leading '-' is : ", end="")
print ( str.lstrip('-') )

# using rstrip() to delete all leading '-'
print ( " String after stripping all trailing '-' is : ", end="")
print ( str.rstrip('-') )

Output: 
 

 String after stripping all '-' is : geeksforgeeks
 String after stripping all leading '-' is : geeksforgeeks---
 String after stripping all trailing '-' is : ---geeksforgeeks

4. min("string"):- This function returns the minimum value alphabet from the string.
5. max("string") :- This function returns the maximum value alphabet from string.
 

# Python code to demonstrate working of 
# min() and max()
str = "geeksforgeeks"

# using min() to print the smallest character
# prints 'e'
print ("The minimum value character is : " + min(str))

# using max() to print the largest character
# prints 's'
print ("The maximum value character is : " + max(str))

Output: 
 

The minimum value character is : e
The maximum value character is : s

6. maketrans():- It is used to map the contents of string 1 with string 2 with respective indices to be translated later using translate(). 
7. translate():- This is used to swap the string elements mapped with the help of maketrans().
 

# Python code to demonstrate working of 
# maketrans() and translate()
from string import maketrans # for maketrans()

str = "geeksforgeeks"

str1 = "gfo"
str2 = "abc"

# using maketrans() to map elements of str2 with str1
mapped = maketrans( str1, str2 )

# using translate() to translate using the mapping
print "The string after translation using mapped elements is : "
print  str.translate(mapped) 

Output: 
 

The string after translation using mapped elements is : 
aeeksbcraeeks

In the above code, 'g' is replaced by a, 'f' is replaced by b, and 'o' is replaced by 'c' in the string using the translate function.
8.replace():- This function is used to replace the substring with a new substring in the string. This function has 3 arguments. The string to replace, new string which would replace and max value denoting the limit to replace action ( by default unlimited ). 
 

# Python code to demonstrate working of 
# replace()

str = "nerdsfornerds is for nerds"

str1 = "nerds"
str2 = "geeks"

# using replace() to replace str2 with str1 in str
# only changes 2 occurrences 
print ("The string after replacing strings is : ", end="")
print (str.replace( str1, str2, 2)) 

Output: 
 

The string after replacing strings is : geeksforgeeks is for nerds

This method is contributed by Chinmoy Lenka 
9. expandtabs():- It is used to replace all tab characters(“\t”) with whitespace or simply spaces using the given tab size, which is optional to supply. 
Syntax: string.tabsize(tabsize) 
Parameters: Specifying the number of characters to be replaced for one tab character. By default, the function takes tab size as 8. 
Return Value: A string in which all the tab characters are replaced with spaces.
 

# Python code to illustrate expandtabs()
string = 'GEEKS\tFOR\tGEEKS'

# No parameters, by default size is 8
print (string.expandtabs())

# tab size taken as 2
print(string.expandtabs(2))

# tab size taken as 5
print(string.expandtabs(5))

Output: 
 

GEEKS   FOR     GEEKS
GEEKS FOR GEEKS
GEEKS     FOR  GEEKS