PYTHON

get first x characters of string python

characters = 4
string = "This is a string"
print(string[:characters])
#output: 'This'

python get first character of string

string = 'This is a string'
print(string[0])
#output: 'T'

python get first letter of string

import re

def first_letter(s):
    m = re.search(r'[a-z]', s, re.I)
    if m is not None:
        return m.start()
    return -1

s = "##catgiraffeapluscompscI"
i = first_letter(s)
print(i)

python find index of first letter in string

>>> s.find(next(filter(str.isalpha, s)))
2

how to find the first letter of an item in python

mylist[0][0]   # get the first character from the first item in the list