split question

[Michael Spencer]

alexk wrote:
> I've a simple question. Why the following:
> 
> words = "123#@$#$@^%[wordA] wordB#@$".split('~`!@#$%^&*()_+-=[]{},./')
> 
> doesn't work? The length of the result vector is 1.
> 
> I'm using ActivePython 2.4
> 
> Alex
> 
Do you mean, why doesn't it split on every character in '~`!@#$%^&*()_+-=[]{},./' ?

Help on built-in function split:

split(...)
     S.split([sep [,maxsplit]]) -> list of strings

     Return a list of the words in the string S, using sep as the
     delimiter string.  If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit
     splits are done. If sep is not specified or is None, any
     whitespace string is a separator.

sep as a whole is the delimeter string

If you want to split on any of the characters in your sep string, use a regexp:
Perhaps:
  >>> import re
  >>> splitter = re.compile("[\[\]~`!@#$%^&*()_+-= ]+") #note escapes for []
  >>> splitter.split("123#@$#$@^%[wordA] wordB#@$")
  ['', 'wordA', 'wordB', '']
  >>>

is closer to what you had in mind

Michael