Split a list into sublists based on certain string

Question

I am pretty new to python, so my question is:

I have a list like this:

L = ['Name1', 'String1', 'String2', 'String3', 'Name2', 'String4', 'String5', 'String6', ...]

I would like to convert it into a new list in which all the strings after a certain 'name' are in a sub-list with the name like:

L2 = [['Name1', 'String1', 'String2', 'String3'],['Name2', 'String4', 'String5', 'String6'],[...]]

Whats the best way to do that?

@eyllanesc I guess OP is looking to split whenever Name.* appears — kmario23
– kmario23, Commented Dec 4, 2016 at 17:37

Marvo · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-04 17:15:15Z

2

Let's assume that there is a function isname() that tells us whether an element of list L is a name:

Lsub = []
L2 = []
for e in L:
    if isname(e):
        if Lsub: 
            L2.append(Lsub)
        Lsub = [e]
    else:
        Lsub.append(e)
L2.append(Lsub)

answered Dec 4, 2016 at 17:15

Marvo

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2 Comments

kurious Over a year ago

What does this line do? if Lsub:

Marvo Over a year ago

@kurious: Lsub evaluates as False when it is an empty list.

elethan · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-04 17:32:56Z

0

Perhaps not the most Pythonic, but:

import re

L = ['Name1', 'String1', 'String2', 'String3', 'Name2', 'String4', 'String5', 'String6']

l_temp = re.split(r'(Name\d+)', ' '.join(L))

new_L = [[item] + l_temp[i+1].strip().split(' ') 
        for i, item in enumerate(l_temp) if item.startswith('Name')]

print new_L

"Flat is better than nested", but "simple is better than complex" and "readability counts", so...

edited Dec 4, 2016 at 17:32

answered Dec 4, 2016 at 17:25

elethan

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