Split a string with delimiters in Python

This post will discuss how to split a string with delimiters in Python.

1. Using `re.split()` function

A simple solution to split a string by the pattern’s occurrences is using the built-in function re.split(). The pattern can consist of one or more delimiters:

⮚ Split on single delimiter

To split a string with a single delimiter, you can simply pass that delimiter to the re.split() function.

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':

s = 'Hello,World'

res = re.split(',', s) # split with comma

print(res) # ['Hello', 'World']

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⮚ Split on multiple delimiters

To split with multiple delimiters, you can do like:

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':

s = 'https://techiedelight.com'

res = re.split('[:/ .]+', s) # split with colon, slash, space and period

print(res) # ['https', 'www', 'techiedelight', 'com']

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⮚ Split on non-alphanumeric characters

To split the string on non-alphanumeric characters, you can use the special character \W, equivalent to [^a-zA-Z0-9_].

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':

s = 'https://techiedelight.com'

res = re.split('\W+', s) # split on non-alphanumeric characters, excluding _

print(res) # ['https', 'www', 'techiedelight', 'com']

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To split on underscore as well, you can use the following code:

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':

s = 'https://techiedelight.com'

res = re.split('[^a-zA-Z0-9]+', s) # split on non-alphanumeric characters

print(res) # ['https', 'www', 'techiedelight', 'com']

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2. Using `re.findall()` function

Another alternative is to use the re.findall() function, which returns all non-overlapping matches of a pattern in a string. The following code example demonstrates its usage by using the special character \w, which matches the alphanumeric characters and the underscore.

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':

s = 'https://techiedelight.com'

res = re.findall('\w+', s)

print(res) # ['https', 'www', 'techiedelight', 'com']

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The special character \w is the opposite of \W, i.e., it is equivalent to [a-zA-Z0-9_]. To split on underscore as well, you can use the following code:

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':

s = 'https://techiedelight.com'

res = re.findall('[a-zA-Z0-9]+', s)

print(res) # ['https', 'www', 'techiedelight', 'com']

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That’s all about splitting a string with delimiters in Python.

Split a string with delimiters in Python

1. Using re.split() function

2. Using re.findall() function

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1. Using `re.split()` function

2. Using `re.findall()` function