Python Multiple Strings to Tuples

Question

Hi everyone I wonder if you can help with my problem.

I am defining a function which takes a string and converts it into 5 items in a tuple. The function will be required to take a number of strings, in which some of the items will vary in length. How would I go about doing this as using the indexes of the string does not work for every string.

As an example -

I want to convert a string like the following:

Doctor E212 40000 Peter David Jones

The tuple items of the string will be:

Job(Doctor), Department(E212), Pay(40000), Other names (Peter David), Surname (Jones)

However some of the strings have 2 other names where others will have just 1.

How would I go about converting strings like this into tuples when the other names can vary between 1 and 2?

I am a bit of a novice when it comes to python as you can probably tell ;)

How would you go about it, and in what way(s) does it not work? — Scott Hunter
– Scott Hunter, Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 22:02

tobias_k · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-23 22:15:16Z

4

With Python 3, you can just split() and use "catch-all" tuple unpacking with *:

>>> string = "Doctor E212 40000 Peter David Jones"
>>> job, dep, sal, *other, names = string.split()
>>> job, dep, sal, " ".join(other), names
('Doctor', 'E212', '40000', 'Peter David', 'Jones')

Alternatively, you can use regular expressions, e.g. something like this:

>>> m = re.match(r"(\w+) (\w+) (\d+) ([\w\s]+) (\w+)", string)
>>> job, dep, sal, other, names = m.groups()
>>> job, dep, sal, other, names
('Doctor', 'E212', '40000', 'Peter David', 'Jones')

edited Jul 23, 2016 at 22:15

answered Jul 23, 2016 at 22:09

tobias_k

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6 Comments

RonB7 Over a year ago

Hi thanks for your help, I tried implementing the first method however it did not work when used in a function like the following: (where 'x' is a string) def strTup(x): payR, dep, sal, *other, surn = x.split() payR, dep, sal, " ".join(other), surn

RonB7 Over a year ago

Sorry for the layout of the code, Its not easy in comments lol, please could you tell me how to get this working so that it returns a tuple like in the above example, thanks :)

tobias_k Over a year ago

Well,you have to return the tuple; in my code I just echoed it in the interactive shell. In your function, use return payR, dep, sal, " ".join(other), surn.

RonB7 Over a year ago

I was having some trouble implementing it and getting it to return the output when ran, however I have sorted that now

tobias_k Over a year ago

@RJB Good to hear that. Just drop a comment if you have any more troubles.

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