How do I exclude the first character if its 0 from a string in python (in a randomly generated string)

Question

So I'm new to this site, and I'm trying to solve something in my code. I'm trying to make a lightshot screenshot scraper in python, but I've found out any code that starts with 0 will redirect to the home page, and would like to avoid that. My current code and an example output:

import string
import random
def main():
  def gen(x):
    N = 6
    r = ''.join(random.choices(string.ascii_lowercase + string.digits, k = N))
    if not string.startswith("0"):
      print("https://prnt.sc/" + str(r) + ' ' + f"{i}")
  x = int(input("How many links would you like to generate? please input a number."))
  for i in range(x):
    gen(x)
  q = input("Would you like to generate more? (say 'y' or 'n'.)")
  if q == "y":
    main()
  else:
   quit()
main()

>>>How many links would you like to input? Please put a number.3
>>>https://prnt.sc/(insert random string here, not here because there are scams on lightshot)
>>>https://prnt.sc/(random string)
>>>https://prnt.sc/(random string)

I've tried looking it up and asking a friend, and i am either wayyy too tired or just don't know what to do. prob both, as i am pretty new to python. Any help I could receive here?

Answer 1

The error comes from your string.startswith("0")

The string module doesn't have that method.

You need to call the startswith() method on a string object.

From your code I will assume that you want to use startswith on the random string r

Here is the fixed code that runs:

import random
import string


def main():
    def gen(x):
        N = 6
        r = ''.join(random.choices(string.ascii_lowercase + string.digits, k=N))
        if not r.startswith("0"):
            print("https://prnt.sc/" + str(r) + ' ' + f"{i}")

    x = int(input("How many links would you like to generate? please input a number."))
    for i in range(x):
        gen(x)
    q = input("Would you like to generate more? (say 'y' or 'n'.)")
    if q == "y":
        main()
    else:
        quit()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()