Remove First and Last Character (8kyu) [Python]

Chek kata on Codewars

Description:

It's pretty straightforward. Your goal is to create a function that removes the first and last characters of a string. You're given one parameter, the original string. You don't have to worry with strings with less than two characters.

Solution 1.1

Let's start with a naive solution. Solving with loop.

def remove_char(str):
    newS = ''
    for index in range(len(str)):
        if (index != 0 and index != len(str) - 1):
            newS += str[index]

    return newS

Solution 1.2

We can make it a little bit cleaner by using not

def remove_char(str):
    newS = ''
    for index in range(len(str)):
        if (not(index == 0 or index == len(str) - 1)):
            newS += str[index]

    return newS

Solution 2.1

A more efficient solution will be to use slice method.

def remove_char(str):
    return str[1: len(str) - 1]

Solution 2.2

We can make it a little bit shorter.

def remove_char(str): return str[1: - 1]

Solution 3.1

Not the most efficient solution. But we can convert a string to an array and use array methods.

def remove_char(str):
    new_list = list(str)
    new_list.pop()
    new_list.pop(0)
    return ''.join(new_list)

Solution 4.1

Also, we can use a regular expression here with the replace method.

import re
def remove_char(str): return re.sub('^.|.$', '', str)