In <1175269107.769945.241500 at r56g2000hsd.googlegroups.com>, kevinliu23 wrote: > "2a 3ab" into "-2a -3ab". In [8]: '-' + ' -'.join('2a 3ab 4xy'.split()) Out[8]: '-2a -3ab -4xy' Ciao, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch