Python – Split multiple characters from string

Python | Split multiple characters from string

While coding or improvising your programming skill, you surely must have come across many scenarios where you wished to use .split() in Python not to split on only one character but multiple characters at once. Consider this for an example:

"GeeksforGeeks, is an-awesome! website"

Using .split() on the above will result in

['GeeksforGeeks, ', 'is', 'an-awesome!', 'website']

whereas the desired result should be

['GeeksforGeeks', 'is', 'an', 'awesome', 'website']

In this article, we will look at some ways in which we can achieve the same.

Using re.split()

This is the most efficient and commonly used method to split on multiple characters at once. It makes use of regex(regular expressions) in order to this.

Output:

The original string is : GeeksforGeeks, is_an-awesome ! website
The list after performing split functionality : [‘GeeksforGeeks’, ‘is’, ‘an’, ‘awesome ‘, ‘ website’]

The line re.split(', |_|-|!', data) tells Python to split the variable data on the characters: , or _ or – or !. The symbol “|” represents or.

There are some symbols in regex which are treated as special symbols and have different functions. If you wish to split on such a symbol, you need to escape it using a “\“(back-slash). List of special characters that needs to be escaped before using them:

. \ + * ? [ ^ ] $ ( ) { } = !  | : -

For example:

Output:

['GeeksforGeeks', ' is', 'an', 'awesome', ' app', 'too']

Using re.findall()

This is a bit more arcane form but saves time. It also makes use of regex like above but instead of .split() method, it uses a method called .findall(). This method finds all the matching instances and returns each of them in a list. This way of splitting is best used when you don’t know the exact characters you want to split upon.

Output:

The original string is : This, is – another : example?!
The list after performing split functionality : [‘This’, ‘is’, ‘another’, ‘example’]

Here the keyword [\w']+ indicates that it will find all the instances of alphabets or underscore(_) one or more and return them in a list.
Note: [\w']+ won’t split upon an underscore(_) as it searches for alphabets as well as underscores.
For example:

Output:

['This', 'is', 'underscored', '_', 'example']

Using replace() and split()

This is a very rookie way of doing the split. It does not make use of regex and is inefficient but still worth a try. If you know the characters you want to split upon, just replace them with a space and then use .split():

Output:

The original string is : Let’s_try, this now
The list after performing split functionality : [“Let’s”, ‘try’, ‘this’, ‘now’]

Character Classes

Regex cheat-sheet on character description

Last Updated on October 28, 2021 by admin