`str.find`

Returns the lowest index in the string where substring sub is found within the slice [start:end]. Returns -1 if the substring is not found, unlike index() which raises ValueError.

Syntax

str.find(sub[, start[, end]])

Parameters

Parameter	Purpose
sub	substring to search for
start	optional slice start index (default 0)
end	optional slice end index (default len(str))

Examples

>>> 'hello world'.find('world')
6

returns index of first match

>>> 'hello'.find('z')
-1

returns -1 when substring is missing (no exception)

>>> 'ababab'.find('a', 2)
2

start argument narrows search window

>>> 'abc'.find('')
0

empty substring is found at position 0

Gotcha

Returns -1 on miss (never raises). Use the `in` operator for a simple membership check — it is clearer and faster than `find(...) != -1`.

Related methods

str.rfind

Returns the highest index in the string where substring sub is found within [start:end]. Returns -1 if the substring is not found.

str.index

Like find(), but raises ValueError if the substring is not found. Use when the substring is expected to exist and its absence is an error.

str.count

Returns the number of non-overlapping occurrences of substring sub in [start:end]. Overlapping matches are not counted.

str.startswith

Returns True if the string starts with the given prefix, otherwise False. prefix may also be a tuple of strings to test against multiple candidates.

str.endswith

Returns True if the string ends with the given suffix, otherwise False. suffix may be a tuple of strings to test multiple candidates at once.

← All Python string methods · Python built-ins