CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonstringjoinsplitline-breaks
theCheek
theCheek

Reputation: 27

Preserve line breaks when converting string to list and then back again with join

I'm facing difficulties when converting the below string to a list and back again. I want it to preserve the line endings, which uses pythons triple parenthesis (""") to encapsulate a Shakespearean verse. The verse is:

fullText= """Hamlet's Soliloquay - Act III Scene i

To QUIZ or not to Be, that is the QUIZ:
Whether tis nobler in the QUIZ to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous QUIZ,
Or to take Arms against a QUIZ of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to QUIZ"""

When using print fullText the result is as expected. But when I convert this to a list with fullText.split() and back again with " ".join(fullText) the result is a string with all words on one line.

I know this is normal behaviour, but I can't figure out if there is any way to preserve the line endings.

Obviously I am building a shakespeare quiz asking the user to replace all instances of QUIZ with the correct word!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1840

Answers (2)

Dimitris Fasarakis Hilliard
Dimitris Fasarakis Hilliard

Reputation: 160657

Use splitlines() instead of split() and join on newlines (as @PM 2Ring suggested) with "\n".join():

>>> print "\n".join(fullText.splitlines())
Hamlet's Soliloquay - Act III Scene i

To QUIZ or not to Be, that is the QUIZ:
Whether tis nobler in the QUIZ to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous QUIZ,
Or to take Arms against a QUIZ of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to QUIZ

You can achieve the same exact thing with split if you split on \n:

>>> print "\n".join(fullText.split('\n'))
Hamlet's Soliloquay - Act III Scene i

To QUIZ or not to Be, that is the QUIZ:
Whether tis nobler in the QUIZ to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous QUIZ,
Or to take Arms against a QUIZ of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to QUIZ

Upvotes: 3

tglaria
tglaria

Reputation: 5866

Don't use fullText.split(). That's causing you to miss your ending of lines (and you won't know where they are).

I'd split into a list of lines, and THEN split each line in each word.

Upvotes: -1

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