How can I shorten variable data

[RaspbianUser1]

I was just wondering how can I shorten data thats being saved in variables for example I want it to be like

Code: Select all

firstname =Ben
letter1= code......
print("The first letter in your name is",  letter1)

the output would be "B" in this case 

[Garvan]

Code: Select all

firstname = "Ben"
letter1= firstname[0]
print("The first letter in your name is",  letter1)

[scotty101]

To expand on Garvan's answer, as well as being able to pick a character from a string you can also get multiple characters, this is called slicing.

This gets the first character (we start counting at zero)

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>>> myString = "Hello World"
>>> print(myString[0])
H

This gets characters 0 and 1 (stopping at 2)

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>>> myString = "Hello World"
>>> print(myString[0:2])
He

It can get every second letter

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>>> print(myString[0:8:2])
HloW

You can even tell it to backwards

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>>> myString = "Hello World"
>>> print(myString[::-1])
dlroW olleH

Works for lists as well as strings.

[RaspbianUser1]

yep that clears it up thanks for the help