Peter Otten wrote: >>>> def mid(s, n): > ... shave = len(s) - n > ... if shave > 0: shave += len(s) % 2 > ... shave //= 2 > ... s = s[shave:shave+n] > ... return s > Not exactly the same results as your implementation though. The extra line should fix that, but it looks, err -- odd.