Python String split()
Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the Python String split()
method to split a string into a list of substrings.
Introduction to the Python string split() method
The split()
method splits a string and returns a list of substrings. The following shows the syntax of the split()
method:
str.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1)
The split()
method accepts two optional parameters:
1) sep parameter
The sep
parameter is the delimiter that specifies where in the str
each split should occurs.
If you don’t pass the sep
argument or use None
, the split()
method will treat consecutive whitespace as a single delimiter and return a list of non-empty substrings.
2) maxsplit parameter
The maxsplit
parameter specifies the maximum number of splits that the method will carry.
If you pass the maxsplit
, the result list will have at most maxsplit + 1
elements.
If you omit the maxsplit
or pass -1
, then there’s no limit on the number of splits. In other words, the result list will contain all possible splits.
Python String split() example
Let’s take some examples of using the split()
method.
1) Using the Python String split() method to split a string into words
The following example illustrates how to sue the split()
method to split a string into multiple words:
s = 'Python String split'
substrings = s.`split()`
print(substrings)
Output:
['Python', 'String', 'split']
In this example, we didn’t pass any argument to the split()
method. Therefore, the split()
method splits the strings into words with all possible splits.
2) Using the Python String split() method to split a string using a separator
The following example shows how to use the split()
method to split a string using the comma (,) separator:
s = 'John,Doe,john.doe@example.com,(408)-999-1111'
contact = s.split(',')
print(contact)
Output:
['John', 'Doe', 'john.doe@example.com', '(408)-999-1111']
3) Using the Python String split() method to split a string using the sep and maxsplit parameters
The following example illustrates how to use the split()
method with the maxsplit parameter:
s = 'apple,orange,banana'
results = s.split(',', 1)
print(results)
Output:
['apple', 'orange,banana']
Since the maxsplit
is one, the number of elements in the results list is two.
If you pass -1 or skip passing the maxsplit
argument, the split()
will return all possible splits:
s = 'apple,orange,banana'
results = s.split(',', -1)
print(results)
Output:
['apple', 'orange', 'banana']
Summary
- Use the Python String
split()
method to split a string into a list of substrings. - Use the
sep
argument to specify where the split should occur. - Use the
maxsplit
argument to limit the number of splits.