On Apr 20, 1:51 pm, kevinliu23 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey guys, > > So I have a question regarding the split() function in the string > module. Let's say I have an string... > > input = "2b 3 4bx 5b 2c 4a 5a 6" > projectOptions = (input.replace(" ", "")).split('2') > print projectOptions > > ['', 'b34bx5b', 'c4a5a6'] > > My question is, why is the first element of projectOptions an empty > string? What can I do so that the first element is not an empty > string? but the 'b34bx5b' string as I expected? > > Thanks so much guys. :)
The reason you have an empty string at the beginning is because you are "splitting" on a character that happens to include the first character in your string. So what you are telling Python to do is to split the beginning from itself, or to insert a blank so that it is split. Also, you shouldn't use "input" as a variable name since it is a built- in variable. One hack to make it work is to add the following line right before you print "projectOptions": projectOptions.pop(0) # pop the first element out of the list Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list