When working with Python strings, a pretty common question is how does one check if a string is empty. There's a straightforward answer to this that takes advantage of the truth value of strings.

In Python, any object can be tested for truth value, including strings. In this context, strings are considered truthy if they are non-empty, meaning they contain at least one character. Thus, simply using the not operator, you can check if a string is empty.

empty_string = ''
non_empty_string = 'Hello'

not empty_string # True
not non_empty_string # False

While this method works in most cases, you may also need to check if the actual value is a string. In this case, you can compare your string to the empty string using the == operator.

empty_string = ''
non_empty_string = 'Hello'
non_string = 0

empty_string == '' # True
non_empty_string == '' # False
non_string == '' # False