21. Another String Method - Split

Another important string method: split()

A helpful string method when working with strings is the .split method. This function or method returns a data container called a list that contains the words from the input string. We will be introducing you to the concept of lists in the next video.

The split method has two additional arguments (sep and maxsplit). The sep argument stands for "separator". It can be used to identify how the string should be split up (e.g., whitespace characters like space, tab, return, newline; specific punctuation (e.g., comma, dashes)). If the sep argument is not provided, the default separator is whitespace.

True to its name, the maxsplit argument provides the maximum number of splits. The argument gives maxsplit + 1 number of elements in the new list, with the remaining string being returned as the last element in the list. You can read more about these methods in the Python documentation too.

Here are some examples for the .split() method.

  1. A basic split method: 
new_str = "The cow jumped over the moon."
new_str.split()```
Output is:

Python
['The', 'cow', 'jumped', 'over', 'the', 'moon.']```

  1. Here the separator is space, and the maxsplit argument is set to 3.
new_str.split(' ', 3) ```
Output is:

Python
['The', 'cow', 'jumped', 'over the moon.']```

  1. Using '.' or period as a separator.
new_str.split('.')```
Output is:

Python
['The cow jumped over the moon', '']```

  1. Using no separators but having a maxsplit argument of 3.
new_str.split(None, 3)```
Output is:

Python
['The', 'cow', 'jumped', 'over the moon.']```

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