[Tutor] string split function - how to tell how many splits

[Dave Angel]

On 11/08/2011 11:56 AM, Cranky Frankie wrote:
> How do you tell how many splits the string split funtion returns? For example:
>
> field = 'The Good Wife ;'	# a string separated by spaces
> new_list = field.split(' ')	# create a list of space delimited elements
> print (new_list[0])		# print the first one
> print (new_list[1])		# print the second one
> print (new_list[2])		# print the third one
> print (new_list[3])		# print the fourth one
> print (new_list[4])		# print the fifth one
>
>
> The last line above causes an error. I plan on reading in a file where
> I don't know what the number of splits will be. How can I find out
> before trying to access an out of range index?
>
>
In general, the len() function tells you how many elements a collection 
has, and in particular split() returns a list, which is supported by len().

But for the printing example, you could also do:
    for item in newlist:
          print(item)



-- 

DaveA