Python: Check Palindrome String

1. Introduction

In this blog post, we will learn how to write a Python program to check if a given string is a palindrome.

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of characters that reads the same backward and forward (ignoring spaces, punctuation, and capitalization). Examples include "radar", "level", and "deified". In this blog post, we'll create a Python program to check if a given string is a palindrome.

2. Program Overview

Our program will take a string input from the user. 

It will then remove any non-alphanumeric characters and convert the string to lowercase to ensure consistent comparison. 

The program will compare the original string with its reverse to determine if it's a palindrome.

3. Code Program

def is_palindrome(s):
    # Convert the string to lowercase and remove non-alphanumeric characters
    cleaned_string = ''.join(e for e in s if e.isalnum()).lower()

    # Compare the cleaned string with its reverse
    return cleaned_string == cleaned_string[::-1]

# Input string from user
user_input = input("Enter a string: ")

# Check and display if the string is a palindrome
if is_palindrome(user_input):
    print("The given string is a palindrome!")
else:
    print("The given string is not a palindrome!")

Output:

For the input "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama", the program will output: "The given string is a palindrome!"

4. Step By Step Explanation

1. The function is_palindrome first removes any character from the string that isn't alphanumeric using a combination of a join method and a for loop with an if condition.

2. It then converts the cleaned string to lowercase.

3. The function compares this cleaned string with its reverse (achieved with [::-1] slicing) to determine if it's a palindrome.

4. The main part of the program takes the user input, processes it through this function, and prints the appropriate message based on the result.