ValueError: empty separator in Python

ValueError: empty separator in Python #

The Python "ValueError: empty separator" occurs when we pass an empty string to the str.split() method. To solve the error, use the list() class if you need to get a list of characters, or pass a separator to the str.split() method, e.g. str.split(' ').

Here is an example of how the error occurs.

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my_str = 'hello world'

result = my_str.split("")

# ⛔️ ValueError: empty separator
print(result)

We passed an empty string as the separator to the split() method which caused the error.

If you need to get a list containing the characters of the string, use the list() class.

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my_str = 'hello world'

result = list(my_str)

# 👇️ ['h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd']
print(result)

The list() class splits the string on each character without a separator.

If you meant to split the string on each space, pass a string containing a space to the str.split() method.

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my_str = 'hello world'

result = my_str.split(' ')

# 👇️ ['hello', 'world']
print(result)

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

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my_str = 'apple,banana,kiwi'

result = my_str.split(',')

# 👇️ ['apple', 'banana', 'kiwi']
print(result)

The method takes the following 2 parameters:

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

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my_str = 'hello world'

result = my_str.split('!')

# 👇️ ['hello world']
print(result)

Conclusion #

The Python "ValueError: empty separator" occurs when we pass an empty string to the str.split() method. To solve the error, use the list() class if you need to get a list of characters, or pass a separator to the str.split() method, e.g. str.split(' ').