CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Aidan Tung
Aidan Tung

Reputation: 55

how to split a string unknown amount of times, into a list

In morse code: a space " " is written as a slash " / ". A gap between letters is written as a space " ".

I made a English-to-Morse translator. It was easy, since each letter was 1 character long, so I could separate it into characters. However, going the other way is hard. I need to be able to detect splits between letters, but also make sure I am not detecting splits between words.

Here is my python code:

print("\nNote: not all characters are logged. \n\n")

english = [ "a","b","c","d","e","f","g","h","i","j","k","l","m","n","o","p",
            "q","r","s","t","u","v","w","x","y","z","1","2","3","4","5","6",
            "7","8","9","0",".",",",";",":","!","?","(",")","-","_","!","&",
            "=","+","$","/","'"," "]

morse = [ ".-","-...","-.-.","-..",".","..-.","--.","....","..",".---","-.-",
          ".-..","--","-.","---",".--.","--.-",".-.","...","-","..-","...-",
          ".--","-..-","-.--","--..",".----","..---","...--","....-",".....",
          "-....","--...","---..","----.","-----",".-.-.-","-..-","-.-.-.",
          "---...","--..--","..--..","-.--.","-.--.-","-....-","..--.-","--..--",
          ".-...","-...-",".-.-.","...-..-","-..-.",".----."," /"]





while True:
    print ("English to Morse: press 1 ")
    print ("Morse to English: press 2 ")
    print ("What is morse code: press 3")
    translate_direction = input("\n>").replace(" ","")

                            
    if translate_direction == "1":
    
        tobetranslated = input("\nTranslate English to Morse Code\n\n> ").lower()
        splitupinput = list(tobetranslated)
        finishedoutput = ""

        for i in splitupinput:
            englishloc = english.index(i)
            finishedoutput = finishedoutput + morse[englishloc]
            finishedoutput = finishedoutput + " "    
              
        print(finishedoutput)

    elif translate_direction == "2":

        tobetranslated = input("\nTranslate Morse Code to English\n\n> ").lower()
        tobetranslated = tobetranslated.replace(" ","ß ")
        
        finishedoutput = ""

        for i in splitupinput:
            englishloc = english.index(i)
            finishedoutput = finishedoutput + morse[englishloc]
            finishedoutput = finishedoutput + " "    
              
        print(finishedoutput)

    elif translated_irection == "3":
        print("Morse code is... (insert long-winded explanation of the history of morse code and its applications)")

I am using .replace() to replace the spaces with some character that is not in morse code plus the space, so that when I split along "π", which will be lost, I have a space left there so that I can determine splits between words.

But, I have an issue: I do not know how to split a string, along an undeterminable amount of splits, into a list.

Any help?

Fun fact: I only have the standard library. Sorry! I am a minor, and my parents aren't willing to download anything, no matter how much I ask.

I also am new to python, so if you could make a quick explanation as to how/why something works, that would be really nice :)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 248

Answers (2)

Dalton C
Dalton C

Reputation: 33

You can use the string split function to split the string into a list of strings by a provided delimiter. For example, the following code splits a string by spaces into a string list.

stuff_to_split = "Hello there my friend"

list_of_strings = stuff_to_split.split(' ')

for word in list_of_strings:
    print(word)

Outputs

Hello
there
my
friend

Upvotes: 0

O. Jones
O. Jones

Reputation: 108676

You need the built in .split() method.

It does this sort of thing.

>>> '1/2/3'.split('/')
['1', '2', '3']

Read about it here. https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#string-methods

Upvotes: 3

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