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Python Python Basics (2015) Python Data Types Use .split() and .join()

Posted by Kevin Selagea
Kevin Selagea
2,161 Points

How do I split lists?

I'm having a hard time splitting lists.

banana.py 
available = "banana split;hot fudge;cherry;malted;black and white"
sundaes = "banana split; hot fudge;cherry; malted; black and white"
sundaes.split(";")
hamsternation
hamsternation
26,616 Points

You are really close but you had the split backwards.

Think of it this way, whatever the .split gets attached to gets split. So if you attach .split(';') to the variable available, the list will get split up. Like this:

>>> available.split(';')
['banana split', 'hot fudge', 'cherry', 'malted', 'black and white']

This however, only returns a list of the items split up. You then need to assign this list to a variable, called sundaes:

>>> sundaes = available.split(';')
>>> print(sundaes)
['banana split', 'hot fudge', 'cherry', 'malted', 'black and white']

Once assigned, the variable sundaes now represents the list and can be called whenever you need a list of the sundaes. :)

I hope that helps!