python re split to split by spaces commas and periods but not in cases like 1 000 or 1 50

Question

I want to use python re split   to split a string into individual words by spaces  commas and periods  But I don t want  1 200  to be split into   1    200   or   1 2   to be split into   1    2     Example  l    one two 3 4 5 6 seven eight nine ten    The result should be   one    two    3 4    5 6     seven    eight    nine    ten

User · Accepted Answer

Use a negative lookahead and a negative lookbehind:

> s = "one two 3.4 5,6 seven.eight nine,ten"
> parts = re.split('\s|(?<!\d)[,.](?!\d)', s)
['one', 'two', '3.4', '5,6', 'seven', 'eight', 'nine', 'ten']

In other words, you always split by \s (whitespace), and only split by commas and periods if they are not followed (?!\d) or preceded (?<!\d) by a digit.

DEMO.

EDIT: As per @verdesmarald comment, you may want to use the following instead:

> s = "one two 3.4 5,6 seven.eight nine,ten,1.2,a,5"
> print re.split('\s|(?<!\d)[,.]|[,.](?!\d)', s)
['one', 'two', '3.4', '5,6', 'seven', 'eight', 'nine', 'ten', '1.2', 'a', '5']

This will split "1.2,a,5" into ["1.2", "a", "5"].

DEMO.

User · Answer

So you want to split on spaces  and on commas and periods that aren t surrounded by numbers  This should work   r      lt   0-9          0-9

[python] python re.split() to split by spaces, commas, and periods, but not in cases like 1,000 or 1.50

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