How to split string before and after any character?

Question

How could I split a string before any character and after any character. E.g:

x = '846a12'

How would I output:

z = ['846','a','12']

The problem in this case is I have mentioned specific character in my function (specific character: 'a' in above example). If input is different character(Let's say: 'b') my function fails. How can I deal with random characters?

Thanks.

What does your example have to do with "any character"? Should the example be something like '846a12b55' turned into ['846','a','12','b','55']? You should properly show the general case you want. — Stefan Pochmann, Sep 06 '16 at 15:16

AChampion · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-06T15:09:42.173

0

You can use itertools for solving these types of problems, for the cases where there are more than one occurrence of the separator, e.g.:

>>> import itertools as it
>>> [''.join(x) for _, x in it.groupby('846a12', key=lambda c: c=='a')]
['846', 'a', '12']

edited Sep 06 '16 at 15:09

answered Sep 06 '16 at 15:07

AChampion

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Really? This is a terrible solution compared to either of the other two solutions in the comments. It's much less readable, and I would be willing to bet it's less efficient as well. – Morgan Thrapp Sep 06 '16 at 15:09
Agree, if there is only one occurrence of the separator, and I'm not sure it is that terrible compared to the `re` based solutions. – AChampion Sep 06 '16 at 15:10
Nope, the linked dupe takes care of multiple occurrences of the separator. – Morgan Thrapp Sep 06 '16 at 15:11

How to split string before and after any character?

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