Split a string with multiple delimiters in Python

# Split a string with multiple delimiters in Python

To split a string with multiple delimiters:

1. Use the re.split() method, e.g. re.split(r',|-', my_str).
2. The re.split() method will split the string on all occurrences of one of the delimiters.

Copied!
import re

# 👇️ split string with 2 delimiters

my_str = 'bobby,hadz-dot,com'

my_list = re.split(r',|-', my_str)  # 👈️ split on comma or hyphen

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com']

The re.split() method takes a pattern and a string and splits the string on each occurrence of the pattern.

The pipe | character is an OR. Either match A or B.

The example splits a string using 2 delimiters - a comma and a hyphen.

Copied!
# 👇️ split string with 3 delimiters
my_str = 'bobby,hadz-dot:com'

my_list = re.split(r',|-|:', my_str)  # 👈️ comma, hyphen or colon

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com']

Here is an example that splits the string using 3 delimiters - a comma, a hyphen and a colon.

You can use as many | characters as necessary in your regular expression.

# Split a string based on multiple delimiters using square brackets []

Alternatively, you can use square brackets [] to indicate a set of characters.

Copied!
import re

my_str = 'bobby,hadz-dot,com'

my_list = re.split(r'[,-]', my_str)

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com']

Make sure to add all of the delimiters between the square brackets.

Copied!
import re

# 👇️ split string with 3 delimiters
my_str = 'bobby,hadz-dot:com'

my_list = re.split(r'[,-:]', my_str)

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com']

You might get empty string values in the output list if the string starts with or ends with one of the delimiters.

# Handling leading or trailing delimiters

You can use a list comprehension to remove any empty strings from the list.

Copied!
import re

# 👇️ split string with 3 delimiters
my_str = ',bobby,hadz-dot:com:'

my_list = [
    item for item in re.split(r'[,-:]', my_str)
    if item
]

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com']

The list comprehension takes care of removing the empty strings from the list.

An alternative approach is to use the str.replace() method.

# Split a string with multiple delimiters using str.replace()

This is a two-step process:

1. Use the str.replace() method to replace the first delimiter with the second.
2. Use the str.split() method to split the string by the second delimiter.

Copied!
my_str = 'bobby_hadz!dot_com'

my_list = my_str.replace('_', '!').split('!')

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com']

First, we replace every occurrence of the first delimiter with the second, and then we split on the second delimiter.

The str.replace() method returns a copy of the string with all occurrences of a substring replaced by the provided replacement.

The method takes the following parameters:

Note that the method doesn't change the original string. Strings are immutable in Python.

Here is another example.

Copied!
my_str = 'bobby hadz, dot # com. abc'


my_list = my_str.replace(
    ',', '').replace(
    '#', '').replace('.', '').split()

print(my_list)  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'dot', 'com', 'abc']

We used the str.replace() method to remove the punctuation before splitting the string on whitespace characters.

You can chain as many calls to the str.replace() method as necessary.

The last step is to use the str.split() method to split the string into a list of words.

The str.split() method splits the string into a list of substrings using a delimiter.

The method takes the following 2 parameters:

Copied!
my_str = 'bobby hadz com'

print(my_str.split())  # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz', 'com']

If the separator is not found in the string, a list containing only 1 element is returned.

# Split a string based on multiple delimiters with a reusable function

If you need to split a string based on multiple delimiters often, define a reusable function.

Copied!
import re


def split_multiple(string, delimiters):
    pattern = '|'.join(map(re.escape, delimiters))

    return re.split(pattern, string)


my_str = 'bobby,hadz-dot:com'

print(split_multiple(my_str, [',', '-', ':']))

The split_multiple function takes a string and a list of delimiters and splits the string on the delimiters.

The str.join() method is used to join the delimiters with a pipe | separator.

Copied!
# 👇️ ,|-|:
print('|'.join([',', '-', ':']))

This creates a regex pattern that we can use to split the string based on the specified delimiters.

If you need to split a string into a list of words with multiple delimiters, you can also use the re.findall() method.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• How to Split a string by Whitespace in Python
• Split a String, Reverse it and Join it back in Python
• Split a string without removing the delimiter in Python
• How to convert a String to a Tuple in Python
• Split a String into Text and Number in Python
• Split a String into a List of Integers in Python