Ways to increment a character in python

In this tutorial, we are going to see different methods to increment a character in Python.

Typecasting

Let's first see what happens if we add an int to char without typecasting.

Example

 Live Demo

## str initialization
char = "t"
## try to add 1 to char
char += 1 ## gets an error

If you execute above program, it produces the following result −

TypeError          Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-20-312932410ef9> in <module>()
      3
    4 ## try to add 1 to char
----> 5 char += 1 ## gets an error
TypeError: must be str, not int

To increment a character in a Python, we have to convert it into an integer and add 1 to it and then cast the resultant integer to char. We can achieve this using the builtin methods ord and chr.

Example

 Live Demo

## str initialization
char = "t"

## converting char into int
i = ord(char[0])

## we can add any number if we want
## incrementing
i += 1

## casting the resultant int to char
## we will get 'u'
char = chr(i)

print(f"Alphabet after t is {char}")

If you execute the above program, it produces the following result −

Alphabet after t is u

Bytes

There is another way to increment a character using bytes.

• Convert str into bytes.
• The result will an array containing ASCII values of all characters of a string.
• Adding 1 to the first char of converted bytes. The result will be an int.
• Convert the int into char.

Example

 Live Demo

## str initialization
char = "t"

## converting char to bytes
b = bytes(char, 'utf-8')

## adding 1 to first char of 'b'
## b[0] is 't' here
b = b[0] + 1

## converting 'b' into char
print(f"Alphabet after incrementing ACII value is {chr(b)}")

If you execute the above program, it produces the following result −

Alphabet after incrementing ACII value is u

If we have to string and converts it into bytes, then we can increment any character we want. Let's see it with an example.

Example

 Live Demo

## str initialization
name = "tutorialspoint"

## converting char to bytes
b = bytes(name, 'utf-8')

## adding 1 to 'a' char of 'b'
## 'a' index is 6
b = b[6] + 1

## converting 'b' into char
print(f"name after incrementing 'a' char is tutori{chr(b)}lspoint")

If you execute the above program, it produces the following result −

name after incrementing ‘a’ char is tutoriblspoint

I hope you understand the concept well. If you have any doubt regarding the tutorial, please mention them in the comment section. Happy Coding :)