How to use re.split for commas and periods?

Question

I have multiple strings where words are split with commas or periods:

string = ['apple,pear,grapes,carrot.cabbage,veggies.fruit,yard']

I would like to split this based on commas and periods:

string = ['apple','pear','grapes','carrot','cabbage','veggies','fruit','yard']

I only know how to use one condition for re.split:

re.split(',',string)

this won't split words that have periods in between. How can I split the whole string so that words are split when there are commas or periods in between?

The split parameter is a regex; use `r"[.,]"` – jtbandes May 21 '17 at 17:24 — jtbandes, May 21 '17 at 17:24

Dan D. · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-21T17:27:50.987

8

>>> import re
>>> string = 'apple,pear,grapes,carrot.cabbage,veggies.fruit,yard'
>>> re.split(',|\.',string)
['apple', 'pear', 'grapes', 'carrot', 'cabbage', 'veggies', 'fruit', 'yard']

This splits on either , or . (which must be escaped as \.) using the alteration operator |.

It can also be written with a character class:

>>> re.split('[,.]',string)
['apple', 'pear', 'grapes', 'carrot', 'cabbage', 'veggies', 'fruit', 'yard']

But this is less general as neither character could be replaced with a phrase.

edited May 21 '17 at 17:27

answered May 21 '17 at 17:25

Dan D.

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You could also use a characters class – OneCricketeer May 21 '17 at 17:26
In _[,.]_ you don't have to escape dot. And for single-character choice square brackets are preferred option – volcano May 21 '17 at 17:27

user3429660 · Answer 2 · 2017-05-21T17:36:36.453

1

import re
string = 'apple,pear,grapes,carrot.cabbage,veggies.fruit,yard'
arr = re.split('[,.]', string)
print(arr)

edited May 21 '17 at 17:36

answered May 21 '17 at 17:30

user3429660

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You don't need to escape the period in a character class – OneCricketeer May 21 '17 at 17:34

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 21 '17 at 17:48

You can use chain.from_iterable from itertools module in order to handle your list, if you have many elements in your string variable

from itertools import chain

string = ['apple,pear,grapes,carrot.cabbage,veggies.fruit,yard']
final = list(chain.from_iterable(re.split(',', k) for k in string))
print(final)

Output:

['apple', 'pear', 'grapes', 'carrot.cabbage', 'veggies.fruit', 'yard']

And you can change only the pattern inside re.split() to split between ',' and '.':

from itertools import chain

string = ['apple,pear,grapes,carrot.cabbage,veggies.fruit,yard']
final = list(chain.from_iterable(re.split('[,.]', k) for k in string))
print(final)

Output:

['apple', 'pear', 'grapes', 'carrot', 'cabbage', 'veggies', 'fruit', 'yard']

How to use re.split for commas and periods?

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