Do you want to turn a string into an array of strings using Python? One way to do this is with Python's built-in .split() method.

Here's an example of how to do this in the Python command line:

>>> string1 = "test your might"
>>> string1.split(" ");
# Output: ['test', 'your', 'might']

You can open up the Python REPL from your command line. Python is built into Linux, Mac, and Windows. I've written a guide to how you can open the latest version of Python from your Mac terminal.

Note that the "," argument in the example above is actually optional. Check this out:

>>> string1 = "test your might"
>>> string1.split();
# Output: ['test', 'your', 'might']

>>> string2 = "test,your,might"
>>> s.split();
# Output: ['test', 'your', 'might']

The Python .split() method is smart enough to infer what the separator should be. In string1 I used a space. In string2 I used a comma. In both cases it worked.

How to use Python .split() with a specific separator

In practice, you will want to pass a separator as an argument. Let me show you how to do that:

>>> s = "test your might"
>>> s.split(" ");
# Output: ['test', 'your', 'might']

>>> s2 = "test,your,might"
>>> s.split(",");
# Output: ['test', 'your', 'might']

The output is the same, but it's cleaner. Here's a more complicated string, where specifying the separator makes bigger difference:

>>> string3 = "excellent, test your might, fight, mortal kombat"
>>> string3.split(",");
# Output: ['excellent', ' test your might', ' fight', ' mortal kombat']

>>> string3.split(" ");
# Output: ['excellent,', 'test', 'your', 'might,', 'fight,', 'mortal', 'kombat']

As you can see, it's a safer bet to specify a separator.

Also note that leading and trailing spaces may be included in some of the strings in your resulting array. Just something to look out for. 😉

How do you split a string into multiple strings in Python?

You can split a string into as many parts as you need. This all depends on what character you want to split the string on.

But if you want to ensure that a string does not get split into more than a certain number of parts, you will want to use pass the maxsplit argument in your function call.

How do you split a string into 3 parts in Python?

If you want to put an upper bound on the number of parts your string will be split into, you can specify this using the maxsplit argument, like this:

string3 = "excellent, test your might, fight, mortal kombat"

print(string.split(" ", 3))

# Output: ['excellent,', 'test', 'your', 'might, fight, mortal kombat']
# maxsplit=3 means that string will be split into at most three parts

As you can see, the split function simply stops splitting the string after the 3rd space, so that a total of 4 strings are in the resulting array.

I hope you find this is helpful. Thanks for reading, and happy coding. If you want to learn more, check out freeCodeCamp's core curriculum.