[Tutor] Python 101 at devshed.com confusion

[alan.gauld@bt.com]

> It makes perfect sense to me when using the len() function 
> that I get a response that there are 9 characters in the string, but when 
> I count through, starting at 0 for the first character, I only come up
with 
> eight for the last character too, just like the interpreter did.  

Thats right the index runs from 0 to len()-1

> So how come the first example, indexing [3:9] works?

Because you are not using *indexing* you are using *slicing*.
A slice [min:max] runs from min to max-1.

This is explained in more detail in the python tutor in section 
"3.1.2 Strings" (Python 2.0 tutor)


Alan g