Creating strings using quotes

3.3.1. Creating strings using quotes#

A string is created by enclosing characters between quotes. Python does not make a difference between single-quotes ' and double-quotes ". Therefore, the following strings are equivalent:

s1 = "Hello world!"
s2 = 'Hello world!'

Normally, we use double-quotes if the string contains apostrophes '; inversely, we use single-quotes if the string contains double-quotes ". For instance, both these strings are correctly defined:

s3 = "It's time to lunch."
s4 = 'I would not call it "results"...'

but the following ones generate syntax errors, because the apostrophe or double-quote closes the string before reaching the ending delimiter:

s5 = 'It's time to lunch'
s6 = "I would not call it "results"..."
  Cell In[4], line 1
    s5 = 'It's time to lunch'
                            ^
SyntaxError: unterminated string literal (detected at line 1)