17.3. Using the Split Function

The split function does exactly that. It takes as input the character to split on, then returns a list with pieces. The pieces can then be indexed.

Try running this program.

# create the input input = "Pat,Smith,girl,65 Elm Street,eat" # split on the comma pieces = input.split(",") # print the values print(pieces) print("First name is:") print(pieces[0])

What do you think we would get if we executed print(pieces[3])

• Smith
• That's pieces[1].
• girl
• That's pieces[2]
• 65 Elm Street
• The address is at position 3 in the resulting list.
• eat
• That's pieces[4]
• We would get an error
• Why would this cause an error? We can use indices to get the element at an index in a list.

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What do you think we would get if we executed print(pieces[5])

• Smith
• That's pieces[1].
• girl
• That's pieces[2].
• 65 Elm Street
• That's pieces[3].
• eat
• That's pieces[4].
• We would get an error
• The error happens because that index is past the end of the list. The last item is at index 4.

The code below is the first activecode modified to use the split function to assign the values to the variables.

# create the input input = "Pat,Smith,girl,65 Elm Street,eat" # split at the comma pieces = input.split(",") # initialize the variables firstName = pieces[0] lastName = pieces[1] gender = pieces[2] address = pieces[3] verb = pieces[4] # create the story start = "Once there was a " + gender + " named " + firstName + "." next1 = "A good " + gender + " living at " + address + "." next2 = "One day, a wicked witch came to the " + lastName + " house." next3 = "The wicked witch was planning to " + verb + " " + firstName + "!" ending = "But " + firstName + " was smart and avoided the wicked witch." # print the story print(start) print(next1) print(next2) print(next3) print(ending)

This makes it easy to change all of the data, by changing only one line as shown below.

# create the input input = "Abe,Brown,boy,1313 Maple Lane,trick" # split at the comma pieces = input.split(",") # initialize the variables firstName = pieces[0] lastName = pieces[1] gender = pieces[2] address = pieces[3] verb = pieces[4] # create the story start = "Once there was a " + gender + " named " + firstName + "." next1 = "A good " + gender + " living at " + address + "." next2 = "One day, a wicked witch came to the " + lastName + " house." next3 = "The wicked witch was planning to " + verb + " " + firstName + "!" ending = "But " + firstName + " was smart and avoided the wicked witch." # print the story print(start) print(next1) print(next2) print(next3) print(ending)

Write code to print out the phone number without the area code using the ‘’split’’ function.

# create the input input = "(805)555-8585" # split on the close-parenthesis phoneNumber = input.split(")") # print the value print("My number is:") print(phoneNumber[1])

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