CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Karnivaurus
Karnivaurus

Reputation: 24111

Output string.split() into array elements in one line

I have a string myString:

myString = "alpha beta gamma"

I want to split myString into its three words:

myWords = myString.split()

Then, I can access each word individually:

firstWord = myWords[0]
secondWord = myWords[1]
thirdWord = myWords[2]

My question: How can I assign these three words in just one line, as an output from the split() function? For example, something like:

[firstWord secondWord thirdWord] = myString.split()

What's the syntax in Python 2.7?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 12388

Answers (4)

wnnmaw
wnnmaw

Reputation: 5514

To expand on Mr. Pieter's answer and the comment raised by TheSoundDefense,

Should str.split() return more values than you allow, it will break with ValueError: too many values to unpack. In Python 3 you can do

first, second, third, *extraWords = str.split()

And this will dump everything extra into a list called extraWords. However, for Python 2 it gets a little more complicated and less convenient as described in this question and answer.

Alternatively, you could change how you're storing the variables and put them in a dictionary using a comprehension. 

>>> words = {i:word for i,word in enumerate(myString.split())}
>>> words
{0: 'alpha', 1: 'beta', 2: 'gamma'}

This has the advantage of avoiding the value unpacking all together (which I think is less than ideal in Python 2). However, this can obfuscate the variable names as they are now referred to as words[0] instead of a more specific name.

Upvotes: 1

Kasravnd
Kasravnd

Reputation: 107287

the above answer is correct also if you want to make a list do this: 

   my_list=[first, second, third] = "alpha beta gamma".split()

Upvotes: 0

derrickb
derrickb

Reputation: 9

Alternatively, using a list comprehension ...

mystring = "alpha beta gamma"

myWords = [x for x in mystring.split()]

first = myWords[0]
second = myWords[1]
third = myWords[2]

print(first, second, third)

alpha beta gamma

Upvotes: -1

Martijn Pieters
Martijn Pieters

Reputation: 1121196

Almost exactly what you tried works:

firstWord, secondWord, thirdWord = myString.split()

Demo:

>>> first, second, third = "alpha beta gamma".split()
>>> first
'alpha'
>>> second
'beta'
>>> third
'gamma'

Upvotes: 5

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