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Why is "e" printed instead of "n"?

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#1 
batman = "Bruce Wayne"

first = batman[0]  # Accessing the first character
print(first)

space = batman[5]  # Accessing the empty space in the string
print(space)

**last = batman[len(batman) - 1]**

** print(last)**
# The following will produce an error since the index is out of bounds
# err = batman[len(batman)]

In the bolded code, why is “e” printed instead of “n” as the output?

I read the [len(batman) - 1] to simplify to [11 - 1] as the length of (batman) is 11 characters. So, shouldn’t print(last) where last = batman[10] end up at the “n” rather than the “e”? As in, the blank space is included in the character count, correct?

#2

@ratnesh

e is printed instead of v because the array is starting with index 0. When we do [len(batman) - 1], it is pointing to the last value that is e, thus e is printing.

#3

Hi Shaheryaar,

The link is here: lesson

Thanks for the explanation. To clarify though, len(batman) results in 11, correct? Then wouldn’t 11 - 1 result in 10, and point to the 10th character, which would be “n” and not “e”?

#4

To get the second last element we have to subtract 2. This is the same case when we run a loop with length - 1 and we traverse the whole array. Since there’s a space between Bruce and Wayne while iteration that space is discarded in result e is printed.

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