Repeatedly splitting strings in python

Question

I am looking to make a function to break a string into a list of str by breaking it at various punctuation points (e.g. , ! ?) that I specify. I know I should used the .split() function with the specific punctuation, however I can't figure out how to get iterate running the split with each punctuation character specified to produce a single list of str with made up from the original str split at every punctuation character.

anon582847382 · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-29 18:02:31Z

3

To split with multiple delimiters, you should use re.split():

import re
pattern = r"[.,!?]"  # etc.
new = re.split(pattern, your_current_string)

Putting that in function form should be simple enough.

edited Oct 29, 2014 at 18:02

answered Oct 29, 2014 at 17:22

anon582847382

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4 Comments

El Bert Over a year ago

Using your method I get a list of empty strings. re.split(pattern, "Hello!I'd like, to say something. 'World'.") returns '["", "", "", "", "", "", ""]'

anon582847382 Over a year ago

@bvidal That's because I forgot to escape the full stop (which meant it was splitting on everything); thanks for telling me. Try it again now.

Yann Vernier Over a year ago

It's probably a better idea to write the regex directly (pattern = r"[.,!?]"), or use re.escape: pattern='|'.join(map(re.escape, delimiters)).

anon582847382 Over a year ago

@YannVernier I'd say that's definitely a better idea. Edited.

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