What’s New ?

The Top 10 favtutor Features You Might Have Overlooked

Read More

Python Split Regex: How to use re.split() function?

  • Feb 28, 2023
  • 5 Minute Read
  • Why Trust Us
    We uphold a strict editorial policy that emphasizes factual accuracy, relevance, and impartiality. Our content is crafted by top technical writers with deep knowledge in the fields of computer science and data science, ensuring each piece is meticulously reviewed by a team of seasoned editors to guarantee compliance with the highest standards in educational content creation and publishing.
  • By Abrar Ahmed
Python Split Regex: How to use re.split() function?

String handling is an important component of programming since strings are used to represent a wide range of data types, including text, numbers, dates, and many others. The re module is a significant module that contains several string-handling functions. Today, we will learn about regex split in python.

What is the regex module?

Python's re module is a built-in library useful as a pattern-matching tool. It supports regular expression matching operations. You can use re to find specific patterns in a string, replace parts of a string that match a pattern, and split a string based on a pattern.

To begin using the re module, import it into your Python script. Then, you can utilize the module's many functions to accomplish various operations. For example, the search function looks for a match in a string.

One of the most important principles in regular expressions is the usage of special characters, known as metacharacters, that have a specific meaning. The. metacharacter, for example, matches any character other than a newline, but the * metacharacter matches zero or more occurrences of the preceding character.

What is the Regex split method?

Python's re module includes a split function for separating a text-based string based on a pattern. This approach is useful for dividing strings into smaller portions based on certain delimiters, such as separating words in a phrase or extracting URL elements.

This function is similar to the built-in split() method in Python, but it uses a regular expression pattern as the delimiter instead of a fixed string.

The split method accepts two arguments: the string and the pattern that determines the delimiter. The method returns a list of strings, each representing a portion of the original string divided by the delimiter. A simple string or a more complicated regular expression can be provided for the split method. The function will split the string wherever the pattern appears.

It creates a partition in the string wherever a substring matches when a regular expression is provided as the pattern.

It's also worth noting that the split method accepts an extra argument maxsplit, which lets you select the maximum number of splits to make. This is useful when you just want to split the string into a specific number of parts and want to avoid further splits.

Can you use regex in Python split? Yes, you can use regular expressions in Python's split() method by passing a regex pattern as the delimiter parameter.

How to use regex split?

Python's re module includes a split function for separating a text based on a pattern. This approach is handy for dividing strings into smaller portions based on certain delimiters.

Here is an example of how you can use the split method:

import re

string = "Abrar,Ahmed,Student"

delimiter = ","

result = re.split(delimiter, string)

print(result)

 

The string "Abrar,Ahmed,Student" is separated into a list of strings using the delimiter "," in this code. The re.split method returns a list of strings, each representing a portion of the original string separated by the delimiter.

Output:

['Abrar' , 'Ahmed' , 'Student']

 

Here's another example that uses a regular expression as the delimiter pattern:

import re

string = "I have 100 dollars"

delimiter = "\d+"

result = re.split(delimiter, string)

print(result)

 

Output:

['I have ', ' dollars']

 

Because the delimiter pattern d+ matches one or more digits in this example, the re.split method splits the string "I have $100" into a list of strings whenever the pattern matches. 

It's worth mentioning that the split method has an optional argument maxsplit, which allows you to specify the maximum number of splits to perform. For example:

import re

string = "apple,banana,cherry,date"

delimiter = ","

result = re.split(delimiter, string, maxsplit=2)

print(result)

 

Output:

['apple', 'banana', 'cherry,date']

 

This code splits the string "apple,banana,cherry,date" into a list of strings based on the delimiter ",", but only performs two splits, as specified by the maxsplit argument.

Conclusion

In short, Python's re module includes a split function for dividing text based on a pattern, to returns a list of strings, each of which represents a chunk of the original text that has been separated by the delimiter. We learned about this python split regex and how do you split a delimiter in regex.

FavTutor - 24x7 Live Coding Help from Expert Tutors!

About The Author
Abrar Ahmed
An ambivert individual with a thirst for knowledge and passion to achieve. Striving to connect Artificial Intelligence in all aspects of life. I am also an avid coder and partake in coding challenges all the time on Leetcode and CodeChef.