We can convert numbers to strings using the str() method. We’ll pass either a number or a variable into the parentheses of the method and then that numeric value will be converted into a string value.

To convert the integer 12 to a string value, you can pass 12 into the str() method:

str(12)

Output
'12'

The quotes around the number 12 signify that the number is no longer an integer but is now a string value.

With variables we can begin to see how practical it can be to convert integers to strings. Let’s say we want to keep track of a user’s daily programming progress and are inputting how many lines of code they write at a time. We would like to show this feedback to the user and will be printing out string and integer values at the same time:

user = "Sammy"
lines = 50

print("Congratulations, " + user + "! You just wrote " + lines + " lines of code.")

When we run this code, we receive the following error:

Output
TypeError: Can't convert 'int' object to str implicitly

We’re not able to concatenate strings and integers in Python, so we’ll have to convert the variable lines to be a string value:

user = "Sammy"
lines = 50

print("Congratulations, " + user + "! You just wrote " + str(lines) + " lines of code.")

Now, when we run the code, we receive the following output that congratulates our user on their progress:

Output
Congratulations, Sammy! You just wrote 50 lines of code.

If you want to learn more about converting Python data types, check out our How To Convert Data Types in Python 3 tutorial. You can also find more Python topics in our How To Code in Python 3 series.