Split string while retaining whitespace separators

Question

I am trying to split a string, but keep all separators bundled together in a separate list.

s = "This is a test     for \n a string"

should results in

a = ["This", "is", "a", "test", "for", "a", "string"]
b = [" ", " ", " ", "     ", " \n ", " "]

Any idea on how to handle that?

Downvoters, it isn't _that_ bad a question. The problem statement is clear and the question is answerable. — cs95, May 29 '18 at 09:14
How do you define *separators*? Is it everything that is not a word? How would the result look like if your text string ended with `.`? — Ma0, May 29 '18 at 09:16
Possibly duplicate https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2136556/in-python-how-do-i-split-a-string-and-keep-the-separators/34004805?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_rich_qa&utm_campaign=google_rich_qa — Mazdak, May 29 '18 at 09:17

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 29 '18 at 09:18

4

re.split is your friend:

split = re.split(r'(\s+)', s)   
x = split[::2]
y = split[1::2]

>>> x
['This', 'is', 'a', 'test', 'for', 'a', 'string']
>>> y
[' ', ' ', ' ', '     ', ' \n ', ' ']

edited May 29 '18 at 09:18

Aran-Fey

answered May 29 '18 at 09:10

cs95

1 Answers1