Check If String Contains Only Whitespace in Python

In this tutorial, we will look at how to check if a string contains only whitespace characters in Python with the help of examples.

How to check if a string contains only whitespace characters?

check if string contains only whitespace

You can use the string isspace() function to check if all the characters in a string are whitespace characters or not in Python. The following the syntax –

# check if string contains only whitespace
s.isspace()

It returns True if all the characters in the string are whitespace characters. It returns False if any of the characters in the string is not a whitespace character or if it’s applied on an empty string.

Let’s look at an example –

# create a string
s = "   "
# check if string contains only whitespace characters
print(s.isspace())

Output:

True

We get True as the output as the string s contains only whitespace characters.

Note that whitespace characters in Python are not just limited to a single space, ' '. Characters such as the tab space character, '\t' the newline character, '\n' etc. are also considered whitespace characters.

Let’s look at another example. This time with a string containing characters like '\t', '\n', etc.

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# create a string
s = " \n \t\t\n"
# check if string contains only whitespace characters
print(s.isspace())

Output:

True

We again get True as the output. This is because '\t' and '\n' are also considered whitespace characters and there are no non-whitespace characters in the string s.

Now, let’s look at an example of a string containing some characters other than whitespace characters.

# create a string
s = "  abc"
# check if string contains only whitespace characters
print(s.isspace())

Output:

False

We get False as the output.

Author

Piyush Raj

Piyush is a data professional passionate about using data to understand things better and make informed decisions. He has experience working as a Data Scientist in the consulting domain and holds an engineering degree from IIT Roorkee. His hobbies include watching cricket, reading, and working on side projects.

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