Does Python come with a function to split a list using a delimiter?

Question

Having a list that contains strings, I want to split the list at each point where it contains the empty string (''), e.g.

['this', 'is', '', 'an', 'example']

should become

[['this', 'is'], ['an', 'example']]

I wrote a generator that does this:

def split(it, delimiter):
    it = iter(it)
    buffer = []
    while True:
        element = next(it)
        if element != delimiter:
            buffer.append(element)
        elif buffer:
            yield buffer
            buffer = []

Since this looks pretty general, I was wondering if I missed some similar function or related pattern in itertools or somewhere else...?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 03 '13 at 13:10

3

>>> from itertools import groupby
>>> words = ['this', 'is', '', 'an', 'example']
>>> [list(g) for k, g in groupby(words, ''.__ne__) if k]
[['this', 'is'], ['an', 'example']]
>>> [list(g) for k, g in groupby(words, 'is'.__ne__) if k]
[['this'], ['', 'an', 'example']]

answered May 03 '13 at 13:10

jamylak

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I think I would use a lambda function here rather than `''.__ne__`, but the idea is the same and this does the trick nicely. +1. – mgilson May 03 '13 at 13:12
How to understand `k` in this context? – Thijs van Dien May 03 '13 at 13:17
@ThijsvanDien `''.__ne__`, checks if each item is not equal to `''` if `k` is `True`, then the item was unequal to `''`,so use it, if `k` is `False`, then the item was `equal` to `''` so it skips it. – jamylak May 03 '13 at 13:19

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

0

You could simply slice the list, all you have to do is find the index of delimiter.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered May 03 '13 at 13:11

Tymoteusz Paul

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Does Python come with a function to split a list using a delimiter?

2 Answers2