.split()

The .split() method returns a new list of substrings based on a given string.

string.split(delimiter, number_of_items)

The .split() method takes the following optional parameters:

• A delimiter that is either a regular expression or a string that is composed of one or more characters.
• A maximum number_of_items for the returned list.

If no parameters are passed to the .split() method, a list is returned with the string as the sole element.

Note: An empty string ("") cannot be used as a delimiter to return a list of single characters from a given string. Using the built-in list() method can achieve this.

If the parameters of .split() are left blank, the delimiter will default to whitespace and the maximum number of items to split will be infinite.

my_string = "I like waffles from Belgium"

my_list = my_string.split()

print(my_list)
# Output: ['I', 'like', 'waffles', 'from', 'Belgium']

The next example shows the following:

• It is possible to use escape characters (tab \t, newline \n, etc.) as delimiters (in list_a).
• The number_of_items can control the size of the returned list_b.

multiline_string = """
Beets
Bears
Battlestar Galactica
"""

menu = "Breakfast|Eggs|Tomatoes|Beans|Waffles"

list_a = multiline_string.split("\n")

list_b = menu.split("|", 3)

print(f"Using escape characters: {list_a}")

print(f"Limited number of list items: {list_b}")

The following output is shown below:

Using escape characters: ['', 'Beets', 'Bears', 'Battlestar Galactica', '']
Limited number of list items: ['Breakfast', 'Eggs', 'Tomatoes', 'Beans|Waffles']

The following example showcases a regular expression (r"ea") being applied as a delimiter for the .split() method:

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