As it turns out, there is a string method named find that is remarkably similar to the function we wrote:
>>> word = 'banana' >>> index = word.find('a') >>> index 1
In this example, we invoke find on word and pass the letter we are looking for as a param- eter.
Actually, the find method is more general than our function; it can find substrings, not just characters:
>>> word.find('na') 2
By default, find starts at the beginning of the string, but it can take a second argument, the index where it should start:
>>> word.find('na', 3) 4
This is an example of an optional argument; find can also take a third argument, the index where it should stop:
>>> name = 'bob' >>> name.find('b', 1, 2) -1
This search fails because b does not appear in the index range from 1 to 2, not including 2. Searching up to, but not including, the second index makes find consistent with the slice operator.