Python Finding the day from a given date

[Taylor_1989]

Does the notation a[0:4] represent the characters in the string from index 0 through index 4? If so, that's five characters. And similarly in a[6:8], which I believe would be the three characters at indexes 6, 7, and 8.

I believe this is what you want:
year = (int(a[0:3]))
month = (int((a[4:5])))
day = (int(a[6:7]))

The index slice is being used to read the year and month and day from the string as u mentioned. I am now slightly confused to how my slicing produces the desired result for the year as you are right the index [0:3] should read the first four characters of the string '2018' however when I run the index from [0:3] it printed:

# Input date from the user/ for now just string in put
a = '20180101'# Define variable for the year, month and day and converting integer values
year = (int(a[0:3]))
print(year)
print('')
y = (int(a[0:4]))
print(y)

[CODE title="Output"]201

2018[/CODE]

So now my question is why is it reading in 5 characters for 2018 and not 4?

 

[Mark44]

The index slice is being used to read the year and month and day from the string as u mentioned. I am now slightly confused to how my slicing produces the desired result for the year as you are right the index [0:3] should read the first four characters of the string '2018' however when I run the index from [0:3] it printed:

That was my mistake in not remembering how Python does things with array slices. Your expression a[0:4] evaluates to the string from a[0] up to but not including a[4].
The portion of the string starting at a[4] up to but not including a[6] gives you the two characters at indexes 4 and 5. And similarly for the last two characters at indexes 6 and 7.

The following runs in Python for an array a with 8 characters:

year = (int(a[0:4]))
month = (int((a[4:6])))
day = (int(a[6:8]))