Python Split Method with Example

Python String split() Method

Python split() method splits the string into a comma separated list. It separates strings based on the separator delimiter. This method takes two parameters and both are optional. It is described below.

Signature

Parameters

sep: A string parameter acts as a seperator.

maxsplit: Number of times split perform.

Return

It returns a comma separated list.

Examples

Let’s see some examples of split() method to understand it’s functionality.

Example 1

This is a simple example to understand the usage of split() method. No parameter is given, by default whitespaces work as a separator. See the example below.

Output:

Python is a programming language

[‘Python’, ‘is’, ‘a’, ‘programming’, ‘language’]

Example 2

Let’s pass a parameter separator to the method, now it will separate the string based on the separator. See the example below.

Output:

[”, ‘ is a programming language’]

Example 3

The string is splitted each time when a is occurred. See the example below.

Output:

Python is a programming language

[‘Python’, ‘ is ‘, ‘ progr’, ‘mming’, ‘l’, ‘ngu’, ‘ge’]

Split String into List

Whenever we split the string in Python, it will always be converted into List.

As you know, we don’t define any data types in Python, unlike other programming languages. Hence, whenever we use the split() function it’s better that we assign it to some variable so that it can be accessed easily one by one using the advanced for loop.

Example 1:

for the item in value:

Output:

Apple

Orange

Mango

Split String into Array

As we discussed earlier, whenever we split the string it will always be converted into an Array. However, the way you access data will differ.

Using the split() function, we break the string into some pieces and assign it to some variable, hence using the index we can access the broken strings and this concept is called Arrays.

Let’s see how we can access the split data using arrays.

Example 1:

Output:

First item is: Apple

Second item is: Orange

Third item is: Mango

Tokenize String

When we split the string, it breaks down into smaller pieces and these smaller pieces are called tokens.

Example:

Output:

String tokens are: [‘Audi’, ‘BMW’, ‘Ferrari’]

In the above example Audi, BMW, and Ferrari are called the tokens of string.

“Audi,BMW,Ferrari”

Split String by Character

In Python, we have an in-built method called list() to split the strings into a sequence of characters.

The list() function accepts one argument which is a variable name where the string is stored.

Syntax:

Example:

Output:

String tokens are: [‘P’, ‘y’, ‘t’, ‘h’, ‘o’, ‘n’]

Conclusion

We can conclude this tutorial with the following pointers:

• String split is used to break the string into chunks.
• Python provides an in-built method called split() for string splitting.
• We can access the split string by using list or Arrays.
• String split is commonly used to extract a specific value or text from the given string.