How do I split these strings into arrays of strings?

Question

I have several strings with phrases or words separated by multiple spaces.

c1 = "St. Louis       12             Cardinals"
c2 = "Boston          16             Red Sox"
c3 = "New York        13             Yankees"

How do I write a function perhaps using the python split(" ") function to separate each line into an array of strings? For instance, c1 would go to ['St. Louis', '12', 'Cardinals'].

Calling split(" ") and then trimming the component entities won't work because some entities such as St. Louis or Red Sox have spaces in them.

However, I do know that all entities are at least 2 spaces apart and that no entity has 2 spaces within it. By the way, I actually have around 100 cities to deal with, not 3. Thanks!

Are the values actually lined up like this? Are those really spaces in between, or tabs? — Karl Knechtel
– Karl Knechtel, Commented Feb 23, 2012 at 8:40
Sorry, I should have clarified. They're all spaces - no tabs. — dangerChihuahua007
– dangerChihuahua007, Commented Feb 23, 2012 at 18:22

eumiro · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-23 08:32:34Z

4

Without regular expressions:

c1 = "St. Louis       12             Cardinals"
words = [w.strip() for w in c1.split('  ') if w]
# words == ['St. Louis', '12', 'Cardinals']

answered Feb 23, 2012 at 8:32

eumiro

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1 Comment

dangerChihuahua007 Over a year ago

Thanks! This does the job without loading a module.

Ade YU · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-23 08:02:53Z

3

import re
re.split(r' {2,}', c1)
re.split(r' {2,}', c2)
re.split(r' {2,}', c3)

answered Feb 23, 2012 at 8:02

Ade YU

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2 Comments

dangerChihuahua007 Over a year ago

Wow, thank you, how does this work? Why is there a comma after the 2?

David Robinson Over a year ago

This is an example of regular expressions, otherwise known as regex (I suggest you take a look!). The expression says what we are splitting around: ` {2,}` means "two or more spaces". If we wrote ` {2,5}`, it would mean 2 to 5 spaces- the comma leaves it open ended.

mpen · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-23 08:03:50Z

2

You can use re.split

>>> re.split('\s{2,}','St. Louis       12             Cardinals')
['St. Louis', '12', 'Cardinals']

answered Feb 23, 2012 at 8:03

mpen

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Comments

mpen · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-23 08:04:36Z

2

You could do this with regular expressions:

import re

blahRegex = re.compile(r'(.*?)\s+(\d+)\s+(.*?)')

for line in open('filename','ro').readlines():
    m = blahRegex.match(line)
    if m is not None:
         city = m.group(1)
         rank = m.group(2)
         team = m.group(3)

There's a lot of ways to skin that cat, you could use named groups, or make your regular expression tighter.. But, this should do it.

edited Feb 23, 2012 at 8:04

mpen

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answered Feb 23, 2012 at 8:03

synthesizerpatel

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Comments

Austin Marshall · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-23 17:22:13Z

2

It looks like that content is fixed-width. If that is always the case and assuming those are spaces and not tabs, then you can always reverse it using slices:

split_fields = lambda s: [s[:16].strip(), s[16:31:].strip(), s[31:].strip()]

or:

def split_fields(s):
    return [s[:16].strip(), s[16:31:].strip(), s[31:].strip()]

Example usage:

>>> split_fields(c1)
['St. Louis', '12', 'Cardinals']
>>> split_fields(c2)
['Boston', '16', 'Red Sox']
>>> split_fields(c3)
['New York', '13', 'Yankees']

answered Feb 23, 2012 at 17:22

Austin Marshall

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