Slicing and offsets

[Alex Martelli]

<gustabares at my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:945bvp$thj$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> I got a newbie question here...
>
> >>> S = "spam"
> >>> S[0]
> 's'

S[0] -> the first item in sequence S.

> >>> S[1:]
> 'pam'

S[1:] -> all items in sequence S *except* the first one.

> >>>
>
> Why is it that when I slice S it's no longer the 0 offset anymore, but
> now it is 1?

Sorry, I don't understand that question.  Whether you're indexing
or slicing, the first element is at index 0; if you index at 1, or
slice from 1, you won't get the first element.

> >>> S[0:]
> 'spam'

if you do index at 0, or slice from 0, you WILL get the first
element (and, if a slice, possibly more elements afterwards).


> Thanks for any help and sorry for the simple question:)

Anything BUT simple -- I don't understand what the question IS!


Alex