split element inside list by comma with python

Question

myList = ['Jay', 'Phil', 'Gloria, Claire']

I want to check every element in the list and split by comma, making the two new elements stay in the same list. Output should be:

myList = ['Jay', 'Phil', 'Gloria', 'Claire']

I've tried this:

newList = []
myList = ['Jay', 'Phil', 'Gloria, Claire']

for element in myList:
   newList.append(element.split(','))

but I got as output a lot of sub lists and this is not what I want:

['Jay'], ['Phil'], ['Gloria', 'Claire']

How can I solve this?

How do you want to split by a delimiter that is not in your string? — Sede
– Sede, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 20:02

idjaw · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 20:06:39Z

2

Try using extend instead of append.

for element in myList:
   newList.extend(element.split(','))

edited Apr 11, 2016 at 20:06

idjaw

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answered Apr 11, 2016 at 20:05

user3587398

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2 Comments

idjaw Over a year ago

You're going to end up with an unwanted to space with "thing, that".split(',')

Adib Over a year ago

@idjaw I took care of that in my answer

Aleksandr Karasev · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-02 08:34:44Z

2

I can recomend you to use list comprehension:

newList = [element for item in myList for element in item.split(',')]

edited Apr 2, 2021 at 8:34

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 20:06

Aleksandr Karasev

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Comments

Adib · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 20:07:01Z

1

You have one major error

First: Appending a list to a list properly requires a different approach (using += vs. append)

Then you need to use 'strip' to remove the white space in ', Claire' to get 'Claire' (not ' Claire')

newList = []
myList = ['Jay', 'Phil', 'Gloria, Claire']

for element in myList:
   newList += element.split(',')

newList = [x.strip() for x in newList]

print newList

# ['Jay', 'Phil', 'Gloria', 'Claire']

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 20:07

Adib

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Comments

Ohad Eytan · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 20:08:14Z

0

Your solution is good for different problem.

if:

myList = "Jay,Phil,Gloria,Claire"

it's make sense to spilt the string to list of words.

Currently you already have a list of words so you split it doesn't make sense.

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 20:08

Ohad Eytan

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Comments

Loochie · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-16 12:03:12Z

0

List comprehension works well in these case

subList = [elem.split(',') for elem in mylist]
newList = [l for elem in subList for l in elem]

answered Jan 16, 2019 at 12:03

Loochie

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