split a string and keep the spliting pattern in python

To split a string and keep the splitting pattern, we can use regex in combination with the re module in Python.

For example, let's say we have the following string:

main.py
my_string = "The quick brown fox, jumps over the lazy dog."
60 chars
2 lines

We want to split the string where there is a comma , and keep the comma in the resulting list. We can achieve this as follows:

main.py
import re

my_string = "The quick brown fox, jumps over the lazy dog."

split_pattern = r'(\,)' # defining the splitting pattern

split_string = re.split(split_pattern, my_string)

print(split_string) # Output: ['The quick brown fox', ',', ' jumps over the lazy dog.']
269 chars
10 lines

In the code above, we first import the re module, then define the splitting pattern using regex. The r in front of the pattern indicates a raw string which is used to avoid escaping special characters like the backslash \.

We then use the re.split() method, passing in the splitting pattern and the string to split as arguments. The resulting list retains the split pattern, in this example, the comma ,.