How to get the size of a string in Python?
Question: For example, I get a string:

    
    
    str = "please answer my question"
    

I want to write it to a file.

But I need to know the size of the string before writing the string to the
file. What function can I use to calculate the size of the string?


Answer: If you are talking about the length of the string, you can use
[`len()`](https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#len):

    
    
    >>> s = 'please answer my question'
    >>> len(s)  # number of characters in s
    25
    

If you need the size of the string in bytes, you need
[`sys.getsizeof()`](http://docs.python.org/library/sys.html#sys.getsizeof):

    
    
    >>> import sys
    >>> sys.getsizeof(s)
    58
    

Also, don't call your string `str`. It shadows the built-in
[`str()`](https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#str) function.

