Split string into two parts only

Question

I have a string

s = 'abcd qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'

I want to split any string in only two parts at the first occurrence of a whitespace. i.e. a='abcd' and b='qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'

If I use a, b=split(' ') it gives me an error because there are too many values to unpack.

Use the `maxsplit` parameter: `a, b = s.split(maxsplit=1)`. – Paul Panzer Jun 14 '18 at 02:34 — Paul Panzer, Jun 14 '18 at 02:34

score 49 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 14 '18 at 09:44

49

You could use a,b = split(' ', 1).

The second argument 1 is the maximum number of splits that would be done.

s = 'abcd efgh hijk'
a,b = s.split(' ', 1)
print(a) #abcd
print(b) #efgh hijk

For more information on the string split function, see str.split in the manual.

edited Jun 14 '18 at 09:44

ilkkachu

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answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:35

TMK

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score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

13

From the Python docs

str.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done (thus, the list will have at most maxsplit+1 elements). If maxsplit is not specified or -1, then there is no limit on the number of splits (all possible splits are made).

'1 2 3'.split(maxsplit=1)
# ['1', '2 3']

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:35

ajxs

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nice one - is there also a minsplit or something to make this work from reverse? – sudonym Jun 14 '18 at 02:35
I tried testing negative values but that didn't yield that kind of result... I guess it would be running the risk of not being able to split a string a minimum of x ways. – ajxs Jun 14 '18 at 02:40
@sudonym I'm not sure what `minsplit` would do. What is the expected result of `"something".split(minsplit=2)`? – Adam Smith Jun 14 '18 at 02:40
the operation in reverse, i.e. just split after the first/second last occurrence? I will check the docs. – sudonym Jun 14 '18 at 02:44
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@sudonym that's `str.rsplit` -- split from the right, not the left. – Adam Smith Jun 14 '18 at 04:42

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:38

12

You can use a standard string method partition which searches for a given separator and returns a 3-tuple consisting of string part before it, the separator itself, and the part after it.

>>> s = 'abcd qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'
>>> s.partition(' ')
('abcd', ' ', 'qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds')

answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:38

constt

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although this works, I'm not sure how it's better than using `maxsplit` in `str.split` – Adam Smith Jun 14 '18 at 02:41
3

@AdamSmith if there is no space in `s` this is a bit more convenient because it will still return a `3-tuple`. – Paul Panzer Jun 14 '18 at 02:46

U13-Forward · Answer 4 · 2018-07-10T03:35:48.943

Try this:

s = 'abcd qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'
s1 = s.split()[0]
s2 = ' '.join(s.split()[1:])
print(s1)
print(s2)

Output:

abcd
qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds

Or:

new_s = ''.join([' s ' if i.isspace() else i for i in s])
a,b = new_s.replace(' s','',1).split(' s ')
print(a)
print(b)

Output:

abcd
qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds

Or even better split also for tabs and newlines:

a,b = s.split(None,1)
print(a)
print(b)

Output:

abcd
qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:43

5

You're missing one more parameter in your split, the number of occurrences, try this;

s='abcd qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'
>>> a, b = s.split(' ', 1)
>>> print(a, b)

answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:43

Zack Atama

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Rajat Jain · Answer 6 · 2018-06-29T05:15:02.787

3

1.You can split the string like this.

a = temp.substring(0, s.indexOf(' '));
b = temp.substring(s.indexOf(' ') + 1);

2.or you can do:

a = s[0: s.find(' ')]
b = s[s.find(' ') + 1: ]

3.

a,b = s.split(' ', 1)
print(a)
print(b)

edited Jun 29 '18 at 05:15

answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:32

Rajat Jain

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score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:41

You can solve this problem by using python "star expression".

s='abcd qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'
a = s.split()
first, *second = a
second = " ".join(second)

"first" takes the first element of the list and " *second" takes the remaining elements.

>>> first
'abcd'
>>> second
'qwrre', 'qwedsasd', 'zxcwsacds'

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 11:49

So, there's a second parameter you can pass as many have pointed out:

>>> a, b = "foo bar".split(' ', 1)

but nobody's pointing this out:

>>> a, b = "foobar".split(' ', 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack

You don't want to be using this because it's unsafe unless you're guaranteed to have a string that has only the one space in it. It's better to split it and then check for how many splits you've got and then unpack them:

>>> parts = "foo bar".split(' ', 1)
>>> if len(parts) == 2:
>>>    a, b = parts

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:35

1

#!python2

s='abcd qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds'

s1 = s[0: s.find(' ')]
s2 = s[s.find(' ') + 1: ]

print s1
print s2
'''
abcd
qwrre qwedsasd zxcwsacds
'''

answered Jun 14 '18 at 02:35

Michael Swartz

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Split string into two parts only

9 Answers9