slicing functionality for strings / Python suitability for bioinformatics

[Reinhold Birkenfeld]

jbperez808 at yahoo.com wrote:
>>>> rs='AUGCUAGACGUGGAGUAG'
>>>> rs[12:15]='GAG'
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<pyshell#119>", line 1, in ?
>     rs[12:15]='GAG'
> TypeError: object doesn't support slice assignment
> 
> You can't assign to a section of a sliced string in
> Python 2.3 and there doesn't seem to be mention of this
> as a Python 2.4 feature (don't have time to actually try
> 2.4 yet).

Strings are immutable in Python, which is why assignment to
slices won't work.

But why not use lists?

rs = list('AUGC...')
rs[12:15] = list('GAG')

Reinhold