Slicing Operations: How to Write Python List/String Slices? With Examples

This article introduces Python slicing operations, which are used to quickly cut out content from sequences such as lists and strings. The syntax is `sequence[start:end:step]`, following a left-closed and right-open interval rule. The default values are: start defaults to 0, end to the sequence length, and step to 1. Negative indices are supported (-1 refers to the last element). Core rules: omitting parameters defaults to taking the start/end or step=1; a step of -1 reverses the sequence. Examples: For the string `s="Python"`, operations like `s[0:2]='Py'`, `s[:3]='Pyt'`, and `s[::-1]='nohtyP'` are shown. For the list `lst=[1,2,3,4,5,6]`, examples include `lst[1:4]=[2,3,4]` and `lst[::-1]=[6,5,4,3,2,1]`. Features and notes: Slicing returns a copy. Lists can be modified via slicing assignment (e.g., `lst[1:3]=[5,6]`), while strings need to be converted to lists before modifying slices. The step cannot be 0, and out-of-range indices automatically truncate without error. Mastering syntax rules and flexible combinations of indices and steps enables efficient sequence extraction.