Convert a list of characters into a string

Solution 1:

Use the join method of the empty string to join all of the strings together with the empty string in between, like so:

>>> a = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
>>> ''.join(a)
'abcd'

Solution 2:

This works in many popular languages like JavaScript and Ruby, why not in Python?

>>> ['a', 'b', 'c'].join('')
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'join'

Strange enough, in Python the join method is on the str class:

# this is the Python way
"".join(['a','b','c','d'])

Why join is not a method in the list object like in JavaScript or other popular script languages? It is one example of how the Python community thinks. Since join is returning a string, it should be placed in the string class, not on the list class, so the str.join(list) method means: join the list into a new string using str as a separator (in this case str is an empty string).

Somehow I got to love this way of thinking after a while. I can complain about a lot of things in Python design, but not about its coherence.