Check whether the given string is a valid identifier in Python

Suppose we have a string representing an identifier. We have to check whether it is valid or not. There are few criteria based on which we can determine whether it is valid or not.

• It must start with underscore '_' or any uppercase or lowercase letters
• It does not contain any whitespace
• All the subsequent characters after the first one must not consist of any special characters like $, #, % etc.

If all of these three are valid then only the string is valid identifier.

So, if the input is like id = "_hello_56", then the output will be True.

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• if first character in s is not alphabetic and not underscore, then
  • return False
• for each character ch in s[from index 1 to end], do
  • if ch is not alphanumeric and ch is not underscore, then
    • return False
• return True

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

Example Code

Live Demo

def solve(s):
   if not s[0].isalpha() and s[0] != '_':
      return False

   for ch in s[1:]:
      if not ch.isalnum() and ch != '_':
         return False

   return True

id = "_hello_56"
print(solve(id))

Input

"_hello_56"

Output

True

Arnab Chakraborty

Updated on: 16-Jan-2021

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