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Python random random function providing correct output for an integer with specific length as 3 [duplicate]

How do I pad a numeric string with zeroes to the left, so that the string has a specific length?

To pad strings:
>>> n = '4'
>>> print(n.zfill(3))
004
To pad numbers:
>>> n = 4
>>> print(f'{n:03}') # Preferred method, python >= 3.6
004
>>> print('%03d' % n)
004
>>> print(format(n, '03')) # python >= 2.6
004
>>> print('{0:03d}'.format(n)) # python >= 2.6 + python 3
004
>>> print('{foo:03d}'.format(foo=n)) # python >= 2.6 + python 3
004
>>> print('{:03d}'.format(n)) # python >= 2.7 + python3
004
String formatting documentation.

Just use the rjust method of the string object.
This example creates a 10-character length string, padding as necessary:
>>> s = 'test'
>>> s.rjust(10, '0')
>>> '000000test'

Besides zfill, you can use general string formatting:
print(f'{number:05d}') # (since Python 3.6), or
print('{:05d}'.format(number)) # or
print('{0:05d}'.format(number)) # or (explicit 0th positional arg. selection)
print('{n:05d}'.format(n=number)) # or (explicit `n` keyword arg. selection)
print(format(number, '05d'))
Documentation for string formatting and f-strings.

For Python 3.6+ using f-strings:
>>> i = 1
>>> f"{i:0>2}" # Works for both numbers and strings.
'01'
>>> f"{i:02}" # Works only for numbers.
'01'
For Python 2.6 to Python 3.5:
>>> "{:0>2}".format("1") # Works for both numbers and strings.
'01'
>>> "{:02}".format(1) # Works only for numbers.
'01'
Those standard format specifiers are [[fill]align][minimumwidth] and [0][minimumwidth].

>>> '99'.zfill(5)
'00099'
>>> '99'.rjust(5,'0')
'00099'
if you want the opposite:
>>> '99'.ljust(5,'0')
'99000'

str(n).zfill(width) will work with strings, ints, floats... and is Python 2.x and 3.x compatible:
>>> n = 3
>>> str(n).zfill(5)
'00003'
>>> n = '3'
>>> str(n).zfill(5)
'00003'
>>> n = '3.0'
>>> str(n).zfill(5)
'003.0'

What is the most pythonic way to pad a numeric string with zeroes to the left, i.e., so the numeric string has a specific length?
str.zfill is specifically intended to do this:
>>> '1'.zfill(4)
'0001'
Note that it is specifically intended to handle numeric strings as requested, and moves a + or - to the beginning of the string:
>>> '+1'.zfill(4)
'+001'
>>> '-1'.zfill(4)
'-001'
Here's the help on str.zfill:
>>> help(str.zfill)
Help on method_descriptor:
zfill(...)
S.zfill(width) -> str
Pad a numeric string S with zeros on the left, to fill a field
of the specified width. The string S is never truncated.
Performance
This is also the most performant of alternative methods:
>>> min(timeit.repeat(lambda: '1'.zfill(4)))
0.18824880896136165
>>> min(timeit.repeat(lambda: '1'.rjust(4, '0')))
0.2104538488201797
>>> min(timeit.repeat(lambda: f'{1:04}'))
0.32585487607866526
>>> min(timeit.repeat(lambda: '{:04}'.format(1)))
0.34988890308886766
To best compare apples to apples for the % method (note it is actually slower), which will otherwise pre-calculate:
>>> min(timeit.repeat(lambda: '1'.zfill(0 or 4)))
0.19728074967861176
>>> min(timeit.repeat(lambda: '%04d' % (0 or 1)))
0.2347015216946602
Implementation
With a little digging, I found the implementation of the zfill method in Objects/stringlib/transmogrify.h:
static PyObject *
stringlib_zfill(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
{
Py_ssize_t fill;
PyObject *s;
char *p;
Py_ssize_t width;
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "n:zfill", &width))
return NULL;
if (STRINGLIB_LEN(self) >= width) {
return return_self(self);
}
fill = width - STRINGLIB_LEN(self);
s = pad(self, fill, 0, '0');
if (s == NULL)
return NULL;
p = STRINGLIB_STR(s);
if (p[fill] == '+' || p[fill] == '-') {
/* move sign to beginning of string */
p[0] = p[fill];
p[fill] = '0';
}
return s;
}
Let's walk through this C code.
It first parses the argument positionally, meaning it doesn't allow keyword arguments:
>>> '1'.zfill(width=4)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: zfill() takes no keyword arguments
It then checks if it's the same length or longer, in which case it returns the string.
>>> '1'.zfill(0)
'1'
zfill calls pad (this pad function is also called by ljust, rjust, and center as well). This basically copies the contents into a new string and fills in the padding.
static inline PyObject *
pad(PyObject *self, Py_ssize_t left, Py_ssize_t right, char fill)
{
PyObject *u;
if (left < 0)
left = 0;
if (right < 0)
right = 0;
if (left == 0 && right == 0) {
return return_self(self);
}
u = STRINGLIB_NEW(NULL, left + STRINGLIB_LEN(self) + right);
if (u) {
if (left)
memset(STRINGLIB_STR(u), fill, left);
memcpy(STRINGLIB_STR(u) + left,
STRINGLIB_STR(self),
STRINGLIB_LEN(self));
if (right)
memset(STRINGLIB_STR(u) + left + STRINGLIB_LEN(self),
fill, right);
}
return u;
}
After calling pad, zfill moves any originally preceding + or - to the beginning of the string.
Note that for the original string to actually be numeric is not required:
>>> '+foo'.zfill(10)
'+000000foo'
>>> '-foo'.zfill(10)
'-000000foo'

For the ones who came here to understand and not just a quick answer.
I do these especially for time strings:
hour = 4
minute = 3
"{:0>2}:{:0>2}".format(hour,minute)
# prints 04:03
"{:0>3}:{:0>5}".format(hour,minute)
# prints '004:00003'
"{:0<3}:{:0<5}".format(hour,minute)
# prints '400:30000'
"{:$<3}:{:#<5}".format(hour,minute)
# prints '4$$:3####'
"0" symbols what to replace with the "2" padding characters, the default is an empty space
">" symbols allign all the 2 "0" character to the left of the string
":" symbols the format_spec

When using Python >= 3.6, the cleanest way is to use f-strings with string formatting:
>>> s = f"{1:08}" # inline with int
>>> s
'00000001'
>>> s = f"{'1':0>8}" # inline with str
>>> s
'00000001'
>>> n = 1
>>> s = f"{n:08}" # int variable
>>> s
'00000001'
>>> c = "1"
>>> s = f"{c:0>8}" # str variable
>>> s
'00000001'
I would prefer formatting with an int, since only then the sign is handled correctly:
>>> f"{-1:08}"
'-0000001'
>>> f"{1:+08}"
'+0000001'
>>> f"{'-1':0>8}"
'000000-1'

For numbers:
i = 12
print(f"{i:05d}")
Output
00012

width = 10
x = 5
print "%0*d" % (width, x)
> 0000000005
See the print documentation for all the exciting details!
Update for Python 3.x (7.5 years later)
That last line should now be:
print("%0*d" % (width, x))
I.e. print() is now a function, not a statement. Note that I still prefer the Old School printf() style because, IMNSHO, it reads better, and because, um, I've been using that notation since January, 1980. Something ... old dogs .. something something ... new tricks.

I am adding how to use a int from a length of a string within an f-string because it didn't appear to be covered:
>>> pad_number = len("this_string")
11
>>> s = f"{1:0{pad_number}}" }
>>> s
'00000000001'

For zip codes saved as integers:
>>> a = 6340
>>> b = 90210
>>> print '%05d' % a
06340
>>> print '%05d' % b
90210

Quick timing comparison:
setup = '''
from random import randint
def test_1():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return str(num).zfill(7)
def test_2():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return format(num, '07')
def test_3():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return '{0:07d}'.format(num)
def test_4():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return format(num, '07d')
def test_5():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return '{:07d}'.format(num)
def test_6():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return '{x:07d}'.format(x=num)
def test_7():
num = randint(0,1000000)
return str(num).rjust(7, '0')
'''
import timeit
print timeit.Timer("test_1()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_2()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_3()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_4()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_5()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_6()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_7()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
> [2.281613943830961, 2.2719342631547077, 2.261691106209631]
> [2.311480238815406, 2.318420542148333, 2.3552384305184493]
> [2.3824197456864304, 2.3457239951596485, 2.3353268829498646]
> [2.312442972404032, 2.318053102249902, 2.3054072168069872]
> [2.3482314132374853, 2.3403386400002475, 2.330108825844775]
> [2.424549090688892, 2.4346475296851438, 2.429691196530058]
> [2.3259756401716487, 2.333549212826732, 2.32049893822186]
I've made different tests of different repetitions. The differences are not huge, but in all tests, the zfill solution was fastest.

If you're looking to pad an integer, and limit the significant figures at the same time (with f strings):
a = 4.432
>> 4.432
a = f'{a:04.1f}'
>> '04.4'
f'{a:04.1f}' this translates to 1 decimal/(float) point, left pad the digit until 4 characters total.

Its ok too:
h = 2
m = 7
s = 3
print("%02d:%02d:%02d" % (h, m, s))
so output will be: "02:07:03"

You could also repeat "0", prepend it to str(n) and get the rightmost width slice. Quick and dirty little expression.
def pad_left(n, width, pad="0"):
return ((pad * width) + str(n))[-width:]

Another approach would be to use a list comprehension with a condition checking for lengths. Below is a demonstration:
# input list of strings that we want to prepend zeros
In [71]: list_of_str = ["101010", "10101010", "11110", "0000"]
# prepend zeros to make each string to length 8, if length of string is less than 8
In [83]: ["0"*(8-len(s)) + s if len(s) < desired_len else s for s in list_of_str]
Out[83]: ['00101010', '10101010', '00011110', '00000000']

I made a function :
def PadNumber(number, n_pad, add_prefix=None):
number_str = str(number)
paded_number = number_str.zfill(n_pad)
if add_prefix:
paded_number = add_prefix+paded_number
print(paded_number)
PadNumber(99, 4)
PadNumber(1011, 8, "b'")
PadNumber('7BEF', 6, "#")
The output :
0099
b'00001011
#007BEF

Convert hex string to hex number in python without loss of precision

So, I am using the answer to this question to color some values I have for some polygons to plot to a basemap instance. I modified the function found in that link to be the following. The issue I'm having is that I have to convert the string that it returns to a hex digit to use so that I can color the polygons. But when I convert something like "0x00ffaa" to a python hex digit, it changes it to be "0xffaa", which cannot be used to color the polygon
How can I get around this?
Here is the modified function:
def rgb(mini,maxi,value):
mini, maxi, value = float(mini), float(maxi), float(value)
ratio = 2* (value - mini) / (maxi-mini)
b = int(max(0,255*(1-ratio)))
r = int(max(0,255*(ratio -1)))
g = 255 - b - r
b = hex(b)
r = hex(r)
g = hex(g)
if len(b) == 3:
b = b[0:2] + '0' + b[-1]
if len(r) == 3:
r = r[0:2] + '0' + r[-1]
if len(g) == 3:
g = g[0:2] + '0' + g[-1]
string = r+g[2:]+b[2:]
return string

The answer from cdarke is OK, but using the % operator for string interpolation is kind of deprecated. For the sake of completion, here is the format function or the str.format method:
>>> format(254, '06X')
'0000FE'
>>> "#{:06X}".format(255)
'#0000FF'
New code is expected to use one of the above instead of the % operator. If you are curious about "why does Python have a format function as well as a format method?", see my answer to this question.
But usually you don't have to worry about the representation of the value if the function/method you are using takes integers as well as strings, because in this case the string '0x0000AA' is the same as the integer value 0xAA or 170.

Use string formatting, for example:
>>> "0x%08x" % 0xffaa
'0x0000ffaa'

Decorating Hex function to pad zeros

I wrote this simple function:
def padded_hex(i, l):
given_int = i
given_len = l
hex_result = hex(given_int)[2:] # remove '0x' from beginning of str
num_hex_chars = len(hex_result)
extra_zeros = '0' * (given_len - num_hex_chars) # may not get used..
return ('0x' + hex_result if num_hex_chars == given_len else
'?' * given_len if num_hex_chars > given_len else
'0x' + extra_zeros + hex_result if num_hex_chars < given_len else
None)
Examples:
padded_hex(42,4) # result '0x002a'
hex(15) # result '0xf'
padded_hex(15,1) # result '0xf'
Whilst this is clear enough for me and fits my use case (a simple test tool for a simple printer) I can't help thinking there's a lot of room for improvement and this could be squashed down to something very concise.
What other approaches are there to this problem?

Use the new .format() string method:
>>> "{0:#0{1}x}".format(42,6)
'0x002a'
Explanation:
{ # Format identifier
0: # first parameter
# # use "0x" prefix
0 # fill with zeroes
{1} # to a length of n characters (including 0x), defined by the second parameter
x # hexadecimal number, using lowercase letters for a-f
} # End of format identifier
If you want the letter hex digits uppercase but the prefix with a lowercase 'x', you'll need a slight workaround:
>>> '0x{0:0{1}X}'.format(42,4)
'0x002A'
Starting with Python 3.6, you can also do this:
>>> value = 42
>>> padding = 6
>>> f"{value:#0{padding}x}"
'0x002a'

How about this:
print '0x%04x' % 42

If you don't need to handle negative numbers, you can do
"{:02x}".format(7) # '07'
"{:02x}".format(27) # '1b'
Where
: is the start of the formatting specification for the first argument {} to .format()
02 means "pad the input from the left with 0s to length 2"
x means "format as hex with lowercase letters"
You can also do this with f-strings:
f"{7:02x}" # '07'
f"{27:02x}" # '1b'

If just for leading zeros, you can try zfill function.
'0x' + hex(42)[2:].zfill(4) #'0x002a'

Use * to pass width and X for uppercase
print '0x%0*X' % (4,42) # '0x002A'
As suggested by georg and Ashwini Chaudhary

None of the answers are dealing well with negative numbers...
Try this:
val = 42
nbits = 16
'{:04X}'.format(val & ((1 << nbits)-1))

If you want to hold the preceding hex notation 0x you can also try this method too which is using the python3 f-strings.
f'0x{10:02x}' # 0x0a

Suppose you want to have leading zeros for hexadecimal number, for example you want 7 digit where your hexadecimal number should be written on, you can do like that :
hexnum = 0xfff
str_hex = hex(hexnum).rstrip("L").lstrip("0x") or "0"
'0'* (7 - len(str_hexnum)) + str_hexnum
This gives as a result :
'0000fff'

What is the simplest way to swap each pair of adjoining chars in a string with Python?

I want to swap each pair of characters in a string. '2143' becomes '1234', 'badcfe' becomes 'abcdef'.
How can I do this in Python?

oneliner:
>>> s = 'badcfe'
>>> ''.join([ s[x:x+2][::-1] for x in range(0, len(s), 2) ])
'abcdef'
s[x:x+2] returns string slice from x to x+2; it is safe for odd len(s).
[::-1] reverses the string in Python
range(0, len(s), 2) returns 0, 2, 4, 6 ... while x < len(s)

The usual way to swap two items in Python is:
a, b = b, a
So it would seem to me that you would just do the same with an extended slice. However, it is slightly complicated because strings aren't mutable; so you have to convert to a list and then back to a string.
Therefore, I would do the following:
>>> s = 'badcfe'
>>> t = list(s)
>>> t[::2], t[1::2] = t[1::2], t[::2]
>>> ''.join(t)
'abcdef'

Here's one way...
>>> s = '2134'
>>> def swap(c, i, j):
... c = list(c)
... c[i], c[j] = c[j], c[i]
... return ''.join(c)
...
>>> swap(s, 0, 1)
'1234'
>>>

''.join(s[i+1]+s[i] for i in range(0, len(s), 2)) # 10.6 usec per loop
or
''.join(x+y for x, y in zip(s[1::2], s[::2])) # 10.3 usec per loop
or if the string can have an odd length:
''.join(x+y for x, y in itertools.izip_longest(s[1::2], s[::2], fillvalue=''))
Note that this won't work with old versions of Python (if I'm not mistaking older than 2.5).
The benchmark was run on python-2.7-8.fc14.1.x86_64 and a Core 2 Duo 6400 CPU with s='0123456789'*4.

If performance or elegance is not an issue, and you just want clarity and have the job done then simply use this:
def swap(text, ch1, ch2):
text = text.replace(ch2, '!',)
text = text.replace(ch1, ch2)
text = text.replace('!', ch1)
return text
This allows you to swap or simply replace chars or substring.
For example, to swap 'ab' <-> 'de' in a text:
_str = "abcdefabcdefabcdef"
print swap(_str, 'ab','de') #decabfdecabfdecabf

Loop over length of string by twos and swap:
def oddswap(st):
s = list(st)
for c in range(0,len(s),2):
t=s[c]
s[c]=s[c+1]
s[c+1]=t
return "".join(s)
giving:
>>> s
'foobar'
>>> oddswap(s)
'ofbora'
and fails on odd-length strings with an IndexError exception.

There is no need to make a list. The following works for even-length strings:
r = ''
for in in range(0, len(s), 2) :
r += s[i + 1] + s[i]
s = r

A more general answer... you can do any single pairwise swap with tuples or strings using this approach:
# item can be a string or tuple and swap can be a list or tuple of two
# indices to swap
def swap_items_by_copy(item, swap):
s0 = min(swap)
s1 = max(swap)
if isinstance(item,str):
return item[:s0]+item[s1]+item[s0+1:s1]+item[s0]+item[s1+1:]
elif isinstance(item,tuple):
return item[:s0]+(item[s1],)+item[s0+1:s1]+(item[s0],)+item[s1+1:]
else:
raise ValueError("Type not supported")
Then you can invoke it like this:
>>> swap_items_by_copy((1,2,3,4,5,6),(1,2))
(1, 3, 2, 4, 5, 6)
>>> swap_items_by_copy("hello",(1,2))
'hlelo'
>>>
Thankfully python gives empty strings or tuples for the cases where the indices refer to non existent slices.

To swap characters in a string a of position l and r
def swap(a, l, r):
a = a[0:l] + a[r] + a[l+1:r] + a[l] + a[r+1:]
return a
Example:
swap("aaabcccdeee", 3, 7) returns "aaadcccbeee"

Do you want the digits sorted? Or are you swapping odd/even indexed digits? Your example is totally unclear.
Sort:
s = '2143'
p=list(s)
p.sort()
s = "".join(p)
s is now '1234'. The trick is here that list(string) breaks it into characters.

Like so:
>>> s = "2143658709"
>>> ''.join([s[i+1] + s[i] for i in range(0, len(s), 2)])
'1234567890'
>>> s = "badcfe"
>>> ''.join([s[i+1] + s[i] for i in range(0, len(s), 2)])
'abcdef'

re.sub(r'(.)(.)',r"\2\1",'abcdef1234')
However re is a bit slow.
def swap(s):
i=iter(s)
while True:
a,b=next(i),next(i)
yield b
yield a
''.join(swap("abcdef1234"))

One more way:
>>> s='123456'
>>> ''.join([''.join(el) for el in zip(s[1::2], s[0::2])])
'214365'

>>> import ctypes
>>> s = 'abcdef'
>>> mutable = ctypes.create_string_buffer(s)
>>> for i in range(0,len(s),2):
>>> mutable[i], mutable[i+1] = mutable[i+1], mutable[i]
>>> s = mutable.value
>>> print s
badcfe

def revstr(a):
b=''
if len(a)%2==0:
for i in range(0,len(a),2):
b += a[i + 1] + a[i]
a=b
else:
c=a[-1]
for i in range(0,len(a)-1,2):
b += a[i + 1] + a[i]
b=b+a[-1]
a=b
return b
a=raw_input('enter a string')
n=revstr(a)
print n

A bit late to the party, but there is actually a pretty simple way to do this:
The index sequence you are looking for can be expressed as the sum of two sequences:
0 1 2 3 ...
+1 -1 +1 -1 ...
Both are easy to express. The first one is just range(N). A sequence that toggles for each i in that range is i % 2. You can adjust the toggle by scaling and offsetting it:
i % 2 -> 0 1 0 1 ...
1 - i % 2 -> 1 0 1 0 ...
2 * (1 - i % 2) -> 2 0 2 0 ...
2 * (1 - i % 2) - 1 -> +1 -1 +1 -1 ...
The entire expression simplifies to i + 1 - 2 * (i % 2), which you can use to join the string almost directly:
result = ''.join(string[i + 1 - 2 * (i % 2)] for i in range(len(string)))
This will work only for an even-length string, so you can check for overruns using min:
N = len(string)
result = ''.join(string[min(i + 1 - 2 * (i % 2), N - 1)] for i in range(N))
Basically a one-liner, doesn't require any iterators beyond a range over the indices, and some very simple integer math.

While the above solutions do work, there is a very simple solution shall we say in "layman's" terms. Someone still learning python and string's can use the other answers but they don't really understand how they work or what each part of the code is doing without a full explanation by the poster as opposed to "this works". The following executes the swapping of every second character in a string and is easy for beginners to understand how it works.
It is simply iterating through the string (any length) by two's (starting from 0 and finding every second character) and then creating a new string (swapped_pair) by adding the current index + 1 (second character) and then the actual index (first character), e.g., index 1 is put at index 0 and then index 0 is put at index 1 and this repeats through iteration of string.
Also added code to ensure string is of even length as it only works for even length.
DrSanjay Bhakkad post above is also a good one that works for even or odd strings and is basically doing the same function as below.
string = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123"
# use this prior to below iteration if string needs to be even but is possibly odd
if len(string) % 2 != 0:
string = string[:-1]
# iteration to swap every second character in string
swapped_pair = ""
for i in range(0, len(string), 2):
swapped_pair += (string[i + 1] + string[i])
# use this after above iteration for any even or odd length of strings
if len(swapped_pair) % 2 != 0:
swapped_adj += swapped_pair[-1]
print(swapped_pair)
badcfehgjilknmporqtsvuxwzy21 # output if the "needs to be even" code used
badcfehgjilknmporqtsvuxwzy213 # output if the "even or odd" code used

One of the easiest way to swap first two characters from a String is
inputString = '2134'
extractChar = inputString[0:2]
swapExtractedChar = extractChar[::-1] """Reverse the order of string"""
swapFirstTwoChar = swapExtractedChar + inputString[2:]
# swapFirstTwoChar = inputString[0:2][::-1] + inputString[2:] """For one line code"""
print(swapFirstTwoChar)

#Works on even/odd size strings
str = '2143657'
newStr = ''
for i in range(len(str)//2):
newStr += str[i*2+1] + str[i*2]
if len(str)%2 != 0:
newStr += str[-1]
print(newStr)

#Think about how index works with string in Python,
>>> a = "123456"
>>> a[::-1]
'654321'

Using a caesarian cipher on a string of text in python?

I'm trying to slowly knock out all of the intricacies of python. Basically, I'm looking for some way, in python, to take a string of characters and push them all over by 'x' characters.
For example, inputing abcdefg will give me cdefghi (if x is 2).

My first version:
>>> key = 2
>>> msg = "abcdefg"
>>> ''.join( map(lambda c: chr(ord('a') + (ord(c) - ord('a') + key)%26), msg) )
'cdefghi'
>>> msg = "uvwxyz"
>>> ''.join( map(lambda c: chr(ord('a') + (ord(c) - ord('a') + key)%26), msg) )
'wxyzab'
(Of course it works as expected only if msg is lowercase...)
edit: I definitely second David Raznick's answer:
>>> import string
>>> alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
>>> key = 2
>>> tr = string.maketrans(alphabet, alphabet[key:] + alphabet[:key])
>>> "abcdefg".translate(tr)
'cdefghi'

I think your best bet is to look at string.translate. You may have to use make_trans to make the mapping you like.

I would do it this way (for conceptual simplicity):
def encode(s):
l = [ord(i) for i in s]
return ''.join([chr(i + 2) for i in l])
Point being that you convert the letter to ASCII, add 2 to that code, convert it back, and "cast" it into a string (create a new string object). This also makes no conversions based on "case" (upper vs. lower).
Potential optimizations/research areas:
Use of StringIO module for large strings
Apply this to Unicode (not sure how)

This solution works for both lowercase and uppercase:
from string import lowercase, uppercase
def caesar(text, key):
result = []
for c in text:
if c in lowercase:
idx = lowercase.index(c)
idx = (idx + key) % 26
result.append(lowercase[idx])
elif c in uppercase:
idx = uppercase.index(c)
idx = (idx + key) % 26
result.append(uppercase[idx])
else:
result.append(c)
return "".join(result)
Here is a test:
>>> caesar("abcdefg", 2)
'cdefghi'
>>> caesar("z", 1)
'a'

Another version. Allows for definition of your own alphabet, and doesn't translate any other characters (such as punctuation). The ugly part here is the loop, which might cause performance problems. I'm not sure about python but appending strings like this is a big no in other languages like Java and C#.
def rotate(data, n):
alphabet = list("abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz")
n = n % len(alphabet)
target = alphabet[n:] + alphabet[:n]
translation = dict(zip(alphabet, target))
result = ""
for c in data:
if translation.has_key(c):
result += translation[c]
else:
result += c
return result
print rotate("foobar", 1)
print rotate("foobar", 2)
print rotate("foobar", -1)
print rotate("foobar", -2)
Result:
gppcbs
hqqdct
emmazq
dllzyp
The make_trans() solution suggested by others is the way to go here.