What are strings?

Strings in programming languages are used to store a contiguous set of characters. Strings are one of the most popular data types in Python and can be defined in three ways:

• using single quotes – for example:

>>> print('Hello World!')
Hello World!

• using double quotes – for example:

>>> print("Hello World!")
Hello World!

• using triple double or single quotes – the triple quotes enable you to define strings spanning multiple lines. For example:

>>> print('''Hello world!
This is a new line.''')
Hello world!
This is a new line.
>>>

The reason why both the single and double quotes are used is so you can embed a quote character of the other type inside a string. For example, you may embed a single-quote character in a string enclosed in double-quote characters:

>>> newString = "Mark's car"
>>> print(newString)
Mark's car