# Strings

These methods are available on both regular and Unicode strings.

^ .capitalize()

	! For regular strings, this method depends on the currently 
	  configured locale to decide what is 'lowercase' and what is
	  'uppercase'.

	Returns a copy of the string with the first character
	capitalized, and the rest of the characters lowercased.
	
^ .center(`width`[, `fillchar`])

	Returns a copy of the string, centered by padding it with the
	fill character on both sides until the given width is reached.
	
	width::
		The desired width of the final string.
		
	fillchar::
		**Optional.** The character to use as a fill character.
		This is a space character by default.
		
^ .count(`sub`[, `start`[, `end`]])

	Returns the number of non-overlapping occurrences of the given
	substring in the given range.
	
	sub::
		The substring to search for.
		
	start::
		**Optional.** The starting point for the search. 
		Interpreted as in slice notation. Defaults to the start
		of the string.
		
	end::
		**Optional.** The end point for the search. Interpreted
		as in slice notation. Defaults to the end of the string.

^ .decode([`encoding`[, `errors`]])

	Returns a `unicode` string containing a copy of the original
	string, decoded using the codec registered for the specified 
	encoding.
	
	__Since Python 2.7:__ You can also specify the arguments to this
	method as keyword arguments, for clarity.
	
	encoding::
		**Optional.** The encoding that the string is currently
		in. If not specified, the value from 
		{>sys}(`sys.getdefaultencoding`) is used.
		
	errors::
		**Optional.** The error handling scheme to use. Can be
		any of the following values, or any other name that is
		registered through {>codecs}(`codecs.register_error`).
		
		strict::
			This is the default. Encoding errors raise a
			`UnicodeError` exception, or a subclass thereof.
			
		ignore::
			When an error is encountered, ignore the
			character, and move on to the next one.
			
		replace::
			When an error is encountered, replace the
			problematic character with U+FFFD, for the
			built-in Unicode codecs.

^ .encode([`encoding`[, `errors`]])

	Returns a regular string containing a copy of the original
	string, encoded using the codec registered for the specified 
	encoding.
	
	__Since Python 2.7:__ You can also specify the arguments to this
	method as keyword arguments, for clarity.
	
	encoding::
		**Optional.** The encoding you wish to encode the string
		to. If not specified, the value from 
		{>sys}(`sys.getdefaultencoding`) is used.
		
	errors::
		**Optional.** The error handling scheme to use. Can be
		any of the following values, or any other name that is
		registered through {>codecs}(`codecs.register_error`).
		
		strict::
			This is the default. Encoding errors raise a
			`UnicodeError` exception, or a subclass thereof.
			
		ignore::
			When an error is encountered, ignore the
			character, and move on to the next one.
			
		replace::
			When an error is encountered, replace the
			problematic character with U+FFFD, for the
			built-in Unicode codecs.
			
		xmlcharrefreplace::
			When an error is encountered, replace the
			problematic character with the corresponding
			XML entity.
			
		backslashreplace::
			When an error is encountered, replace the
			problematic character with the corresponding
			backslashed escape sequence.

^ .endswith(`suffix`[, `start`[, `end`]])

	Returns a boolean, indicating whether the string ends with the
	given suffix or not.
	
	suffix::
		The suffix to check for. You can either specify a single
		string, or a tuple of strings to look for.
		
	start::
		**Optional.** The starting point for the search. 
		Interpreted as in slice notation. Defaults to the start
		of the string.
		
	end::
		**Optional.** The end point for the search. Interpreted
		as in slice notation. Defaults to the end of the string.
		
^ .expandtabs([`tabsize`])

	Returns a copy of the string, with all tab characters replaced
	by one or more spaces, depending on the specified tabsize.
	
	The string is divided up into columns, each of which is as wide
	as the given tabsize. After every part of the string that is not
	a tab character, the current column is filled up with one or
	more spaces, until the next column 'border' is reached. If there
	are multiple tab characters in a row, the remaining tab
	characters will fill up an entire column each.
	
	! Every character that is not a tab, newline or return, will be
	  treated as being one position wide, even if they are not
	  displayed when printing the entire string.

	tabsize::
		**Optional.** The amount of spaces that a tab character
		should be replaced with, at most. Defaults to 8.
		
^ .find(`sub`[, `start`[, `end`]])

	Returns the first position in the string where the given
	substring is found. If the substring is not found, the value
	`-1` is returned.
	
	sub::
		The substring to search for.
		
	start::
		**Optional.** The starting point for the search. 
		Interpreted as in slice notation. Defaults to the start
		of the string.
		
	end::
		**Optional.** The end point for the search. Interpreted
		as in slice notation. Defaults to the end of the string.