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Split & Join

Lists and strings are different. In some cases, a list will be preferable to a string, and in other cases, it will be the opposite.

It is important to know that you can easily transform a list into a string or a string into a list. You can do this using the split and join methods described below.

Split

To convert a string into a list, we will in fact split the string using the split method.

🐍 Python Script
my_text = "Hello World"
my_text = my_text.split(" ")
print(my_text) # Will print ['Hello', 'World']

The parameter we give to the split method will impact how the string will be split. Here we ask to split it when there is a space.

Join

To convert a list into a string, we will join the different elements of the list using the join method.

🐍 Python Script
my_list = ["Hello", "World"]
my_list = " ".join(my_list)
print(my_list) # Will print 'Hello World'

The parameter given to the join method is the list and we apply this method on a string (here a single space). It will insert that string between each element of the list.

Exercise 13

Save your code in your Python folder and call it exercise13.

Write a program that will:

  • Create a variable text and assign the following to it: “Hello,everybody,how,are,you,doing?”
  • Split text on the , delimiter and assign it to a variable called result
  • Print result
  • Join the text back in the variable result, adding a space delimiter this time and assign it to the variable result2
  • Print result2
Help
  • To split a text on a # character, you write: my_text = my_text.split("#")
  • To join a list on a , character, you write: my_list = ",".join(my_list)
  • You should get the following result:
📋 Output
>>> %Run Ex13.py
['Hello', 'everybody', 'how', 'are', 'you', 'doing?']
Hello everybody how are you doing?