split string on a number of different characters

Question

I'd like to split a string using one or more separator characters.

E.g. "a b.c", split on " " and "." would give the list ["a", "b", "c"].

At the moment, I can't see anything in the standard library to do this, and my own attempts are a bit clumsy. E.g.

def my_split(string, split_chars):
    if isinstance(string_L, basestring):
        string_L = [string_L]
    try:
        split_char = split_chars[0]
    except IndexError:
        return string_L

    res = []
    for s in string_L:
        res.extend(s.split(split_char))
    return my_split(res, split_chars[1:])

print my_split("a b.c", [' ', '.'])

Horrible! Any better suggestions?

is that "a b.c" ( a space b dot c )? Do you have more sample input? — OscarRyz, Dec 17 '08 at 02:10
Yes that's right. I've updated the question to be a bit clearer — James Brady, Dec 17 '08 at 02:19

score 38 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 19 '12 at 09:38

38

>>> import re
>>> re.split('[ .]', 'a b.c')
['a', 'b', 'c']

edited Jun 19 '12 at 09:38

Zack Zatkin-Gold

814
9
29

answered Dec 17 '08 at 02:16

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

776,304
153
1,341
1,358

And remember, that characters have to be in squere brackets []. I forgot about that and lost at least 20 minutes. With out brackets `split()` splits acording to whole string. – noisy Mar 16 '13 at 00:35

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

2

Solution without re:

from itertools import groupby
sep = ' .,'
s = 'a b.c,d'
print [''.join(g) for k, g in groupby(s, sep.__contains__) if not k]

An explanation is here https://stackoverflow.com/a/19211729/2468006

edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

Community

1
1

answered Oct 06 '13 at 17:41

monitorius

3,566
1
20
17

nakedfanatic · Answer 3 · 2008-12-17T19:48:19.727

2

This one replaces all of the separators with the first separator in the list, and then "splits" using that character.

def split(string, divs):
    for d in divs[1:]:
        string = string.replace(d, divs[0])
    return string.split(divs[0])

output:

>>> split("a b.c", " .")
['a', 'b', 'c']

>>> split("a b.c", ".")
['a b', 'c']

I do like that 're' solution though.

edited Dec 17 '08 at 19:48

answered Dec 17 '08 at 03:31

nakedfanatic

3,108
2
28
33

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 16 '09 at 10:09

1

Not very fast but does the job:

def my_split(text, seps):
  for sep in seps:
    text = text.replace(sep, seps[0])
  return text.split(seps[0])

answered Jun 16 '09 at 10:09

yairchu

23,680
7
69
109

split string on a number of different characters

4 Answers4

Linked