{"id":130072,"date":"2022-11-27T02:26:55","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T02:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.finxter.com\/?p=928531"},"modified":"2022-11-27T02:26:55","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T02:26:55","slug":"python-split-string-empty-separator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/11\/27\/python-split-string-empty-separator\/","title":{"rendered":"Python | Split String Empty Separator"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rate this post<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Summary:<\/strong> You can split a string using an empty separator using –
(i) list constructor
(ii) map+lambda
(iii) regex
(iv) list comprehension<\/strong><\/p>\n

Minimal Example:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
text = '12345' # Using list()\nprint(list(text)) # Using map+lambda\nprint(list(map(lambda c: c, text))) # Using list comprehension\nprint([x for x in text]) # Using regex\nimport re\n# Approach 1\nprint([x for x in re.split('', text) if x != ''])\n# Approach 2\nprint(re.findall('.', text))<\/pre>\n
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Problem Formulation<\/h2>\n
\"\ud83d\udcdc\"Problem: <\/strong>How to split a string using an empty string as a separator?<\/p>\n
Example: <\/strong>Consider the following snippet – <\/p>\n
a = 'abcd'\nprint(a.split(''))<\/pre>\n
Output:<\/strong><\/p>\n
Traceback (most recent call last): File \"C:\\Users\\SHUBHAM SAYON\\PycharmProjects\\Finxter\\Blogs\\Finxter.py\", line 2, in <module> a.split('')\nValueError: empty separator<\/pre>\n
Expected Output: <\/strong><\/p>\n
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']<\/pre>\n
So, this essentially means that when you try to split a string by using an empty string as the separator, you will get a ValueError. Thus, your task is to find out how to eliminate this error and split the string in a way such that each character of the string is separately stored as an item in a list<\/a>. <\/p>\n
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Now that we have a clear picture of the problem let us dive into the solutions to solve the problem.<\/p>\n
Method 1: Use list()<\/a><\/h2>\n
Approach:\u00a0<\/strong>Use the list() constructor and pass the given string as an argument within it as the input, which will split the string into separate characters. <\/p>\n
Note: <\/strong>list()<\/code>\u00a0creates a new list object that contains items obtained by iterating over the input iterable. Since a string is an iterable formed by combining a group of characters, hence, iterating over it using the\u00a0list<\/em>\u00a0constructor yields a single character at each iteration which represents individual items in the newly formed list.<\/p>\n
Code:<\/strong><\/p>\n
a = 'abcd'\nprint(list(a)) # ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']<\/pre>\n
\"\ud83c\udf0e\"Related Read:\u00a0Python list() \u2014 A Simple Guide with Video<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
Method 2: Use map()<\/a> and lambda<\/a><\/h2>\n
Approach: <\/strong>Use the\u00a0map()<\/code>\u00a0to execute a certain lambda function on the given string. All you need to do is to create a lambda function that simply returns the character passed to it as the input to the map object. That\u2019s it! However, the map method will return a map object, so you must convert it to a list using the\u00a0list()<\/code>\u00a0function. <\/p>\n
Code: <\/strong><\/p>\n
a = 'abcd'\nprint(list(map(lambda c: c, a))) # ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']<\/pre>\n
Method 3: Use a list comprehension<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Approach: <\/strong>Use a\u00a0list comprehension<\/a>\u00a0that returns a new list containing each character of the given string as individual items. <\/p>\n
Code:<\/strong><\/p>\n
a = 'abcd'\nprint([x for x in a])\n# ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']<\/pre>\n
\"\ud83c\udf0e\"Related Read: List Comprehension in Python \u2014 A Helpful Illustrated Guide<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
Method 4: Using regex<\/h2>\n
The\u00a0re.findall(pattern, string)<\/code>\u00a0method scans\u00a0string<\/code>\u00a0from\u00a0left to right<\/strong>, searching for all\u00a0non-overlapping matches<\/strong>\u00a0of the\u00a0pattern<\/code>. It returns a\u00a0list of strings<\/strong>\u00a0in the matching order when scanning the string from left to right.<\/p>\n
\"\ud83c\udf0e\"Related Read: Python re.findall() \u2013 Everything You Need to Know<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
Approach: <\/strong>Use the regular expression re.findall('.',a)<\/code> that finds all characters in the given string ‘a<\/code>‘ and stires them in a list as individual items. <\/p>\n
Code:<\/strong><\/p>\n
import re\na = 'abcd'\nprint(re.findall('.',a)) # ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']<\/pre>\n
Alternatively, you can also use the split method of the regex library in a list comprehension which returns each character of the string and eliminates empty strings. <\/p>\n
Code:<\/strong><\/p>\n
import re\na = 'abcd'\nprint([x for x in re.split('',a) if x!='']) # ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']<\/pre>\n
\"\ud83c\udf0e\"Related Read: Python Regex Split<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
Do you want to master the regex superpower?<\/em><\/strong> Check out my new book The Smartest Way to Learn Regular Expressions in Python<\/a><\/strong><\/em> with the innovative 3-step approach for active learning: (1) study a book chapter, (2) solve a code puzzle, and (3) watch an educational chapter video. <\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Hurrah! We have successfully solved the given problem using as many as four (five, to be honest) different ways. I hope this\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0helped you and answered your queries. Please\u00a0subscribe and stay tuned<\/a>\u00a0for more interesting articles and solutions in the future.<\/p>\n
Happy coding! \"\ud83d\ude42\"<\/p>\n
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Regex Humor<\/h2>\n
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\"\"
Wait, forgot to escape a space. Wheeeeee[taptaptap]eeeeee.<\/em> (source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rate this post Summary: You can split a string using an empty separator using – (i) list constructor (ii) map+lambda (iii) regex (iv) list comprehension Minimal Example: text = ‘12345’ # Using list() print(list(text)) # Using map+lambda print(list(map(lambda c: c, text))) # Using list comprehension print([x for x in text]) # Using regex import re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[857],"tags":[73,468,528],"class_list":["post-130072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-python-tut","tag-programming","tag-python","tag-tutorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}