python split a string with at least 2 whitespaces

In the case of:

• mixed tabs and spaces
• blanks at start and/or at end of the string

(originally answering to Split string at whitespace longer than a single space and tab characters, Python)

I would split with a regular expression: 2 or more blanks, then filter out the empty strings that re.split yields:

import re

s = '        1. 1. 2.     1 \tNote#EvE\t \t1\t \tE3\t \t  64\t        1. 3. 2. 120 \n'

result = [x for x in re.split("\s{2,}",s) if x]

print(result)

prints:

['1. 1. 2.', '1', 'Note#EvE', '1', 'E3', '64', '1. 3. 2. 120']

this isn't going to preserve leading/trailing spaces but it's close.

As has been pointed out, str is not a good name for your string, so using words instead:

output = [s.strip() for s in words.split('  ') if s]

The .split(' ') -- with two spaces -- will give you a list that includes empty strings, and items with trailing/leading whitespace. The list comprehension iterates through that list, keeps any non-blank items (if s), and .strip() takes care of any leading/trailing whitespace.

>>> import re    
>>> text = '10DEUTSCH        GGS Neue Heide 25-27     Wahn-Heide   -1      -1'
>>> re.split(r'\s{2,}', text)
['10DEUTSCH', 'GGS Neue Heide 25-27', 'Wahn-Heide', '-1', '-1']

Where

• \s matches any whitespace character, like \t\n\r\f\v and more
• {2,} is a repetition, meaning "2 or more"

In [30]: strs='10DEUTSCH        GGS Neue Heide 25-27     Wahn-Heide   -1      -1'

In [38]: filter(None, strs.split("  "))

Out[38]: ['10DEUTSCH', 'GGS Neue Heide 25-27', ' Wahn-Heide', ' -1', '-1']

In [32]: map(str.strip, filter(None, strs.split("  ")))

Out[32]: ['10DEUTSCH', 'GGS Neue Heide 25-27', 'Wahn-Heide', '-1', '-1']

For python 3, wrap the result of filter and map with list to force iteration.