Return empty string as True in given string

• You wrote that you want to compare the first character to the last, so you have to use [-1] and not [3]. Otherwise you are comparing the first and the fourth characters.

• You can use if not message to check if it's an empty string

• Since you are returning, you don't need to check if they do not match.

def first_and_last(message):
    if not message:
        return True
    return message[0] == message[-1]

As noted in the comments this can be pushed a bit more into a single line:

def first_and_last(message):
    return not message or message[0] == message[-1]

You can use if not

def first_and_last(message):
if not message:
    return False
else: return True


print(first_and_last("else")) #True
print(first_and_last("tree")) #True
print(first_and_last("")) #False