How to separate integer/float and string part of a given string?

Question

Given string "5mins", I want to separate them something like [5, 'mins']. I have tried doing:

>>> re.findall(r"\d+|\D+", '5mins')
['5', 'mins']

which seems to do good but:

>>> def separate(string):
...    return re.findall(r"\d+|\D+", string)
...
>>> print(separate('3hours'))
['3', 'hours']
>>> print(separate('7secs'))
['7', 'secs']
>>> print(separate('now'))
['now']

The problem with this method is I get ValueError if I have done assignment:

>>> number, unit = separate('now')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack

The all I here want is to get a list of number and unit. If there is no number then I should get an empty string, so that I can process the time further.

Additionally it's good if number is not a string, like above separate() function returns.

No, it's still a string, even if it contains a number.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
– Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

2013-07-25 05:58:05 +00:00
Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 5:58 — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
– Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 5:58

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-25 05:57:20Z

7

>>> re.match(r"(\d+)?(\D+)?$", '5mins').groups()
('5', 'mins')
>>> re.match(r"(\d+)?(\D+)?$", 'now').groups()
(None, 'now')

answered Jul 25, 2013 at 5:57

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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2 Comments

Santosh Kumar Over a year ago

Dealing with regex has always been difficult to me. I usually run away form regex. Where did you learnt it? :)

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Over a year ago

The hard way. Practice, practice, practice.

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