Concatenating certain parts of a list. Removing spaces.

Question

I have a list of names split up letter by letter, I would like to concatenate the individual names together. This is what I currently have:

['S', 't', 'u', 'a', 'r', 't', ' ', 'S', 't', 'e', 'v', 'e', ' ', 'A', 'n', 'd', 'r', 'e', 'w', ' ', 'L', 'u', 'k', 'e', ' ', 'S', 'h', 'a', 'n', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'L', 'u', 'k', 'e', ' ', 'M', 'o', 'l', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'M', 'o', 'l', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'R', 'o', 'b', ' ']

I would like to turn it into this:

['Stuart', 'Steve', 'Andrew', 'Luke', 'Shaney', 'Luke', 'Moley', 'Moley', 'Rob']

This is possible but how did you get the first list? You should put the data in a better format in the first place instead of getting it into this messed up one and trying to fix it. — Two-Bit Alchemist, Feb 05 '15 at 19:31
@vaultah I appreciate the feedback but that's not what I'm aiming for unfortunately. — Shaney96, Feb 05 '15 at 19:32
@Two-BitAlchemist I am reading from a text file. I broke up the text and placed it into a list, I'm now wondering how to get it so it recognizes when a space is present and it concatenates the data accordingly. I'm not sure how though — Shaney96, Feb 05 '15 at 19:34
@jonrsharpe the comment was edited and originally said only `''.join(your_list)` — Two-Bit Alchemist, Feb 05 '15 at 19:35
@jonrsharpe It doesn't, what ''.join() does is turns it into a string, I want it in a list, as I stated in my original question. — Shaney96, Feb 05 '15 at 19:36
@Shaney96 I highly recommend asking a new question with your original text file and the code you are using to parse it. The correct solution is not to get into this situation in the first place, as I said. — Two-Bit Alchemist, Feb 05 '15 at 19:37
Ahh it's been edited, thanks @vaultah, that works and is exactly what I am looking for! Cheers man — Shaney96, Feb 05 '15 at 19:37
@Two-BitAlchemist The question I asked was fine, it was straightforward and the first (now edited) response was the one I was looking for. — Shaney96, Feb 05 '15 at 19:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 05 '15 at 19:35

1

Let info be your list.

concat = "".join(info)
names = concat.split()
print names

But see the comment of Two-Bit Alchemist.

answered Feb 05 '15 at 19:35

Alan

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Ashwini Chaudhary · Answer 2 · 2015-02-05T19:43:36.833

Use itertools.groupby and group using str.isspace:

>>> from itertools import groupby
>>> lst = ['S', 't', 'u', 'a', 'r', 't', ' ', 'S', 't', 'e', 'v', 'e', ' ', 'A', 'n', 'd', 'r', 'e', 'w', ' ', 'L', 'u', 'k', 'e', ' ', 'S', 'h', 'a', 'n', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'L', 'u', 'k', 'e', ' ', 'M', 'o', 'l', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'M', 'o', 'l', 'e',  'y', ' ', 'R', 'o', 'b', ' ']
>>> [''.join(g) for k, g in groupby(lst, key=str.isspace) if not k]
['Stuart', 'Steve', 'Andrew', 'Luke', 'Shaney', 'Luke', 'Moley', 'Moley', 'Rob']

I am reading from a text file. I broke up the text and placed it into a list, I'm now wondering how to get it so it recognizes when a space is present and it concatenates the data accordingly. I'm not sure how though

I am not sure how you read this text, but you're processing it incorrectly. Don't call list() on the line or the whole text you've read from the file:

>>> s = 'Stuart Steve Andrew Luke Shaney Luke Moley Moley Rob'
>>> list(s)
['S', 't', 'u', 'a', 'r', 't', ' ', 'S', 't', 'e', 'v', 'e', ' ', 'A', 'n', 'd', 'r', 'e', 'w', ' ', 'L', 'u', 'k', 'e', ' ', 'S', 'h', 'a', 'n', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'L', 'u', 'k', 'e', ' ', 'M', 'o', 'l', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'M', 'o', 'l', 'e', 'y', ' ', 'R', 'o', 'b']

If you want a list of words simply use str.split on the text you've read:

>>> s.split()
['Stuart', 'Steve', 'Andrew', 'Luke', 'Shaney', 'Luke', 'Moley', 'Moley', 'Rob']

Cheers for linking your response to the context, I appreciate it. — Shaney96, Feb 05 '15 at 19:41

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 05 '15 at 19:35

You can iterate over the chars in the list, here is a little example:

# chars being your list
names = []

current_name = ""
for current_char in chars:
     if current_char == ' ':
         names.append(current_name)
         current_name = ""
     else:
          current_name += current_char

 return names

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 05 '15 at 19:36

0

Considering li to be the input list -

>>> [i for i in "".join(li).split(" ") if i.strip() != ""]
['Stuart', 'Steve', 'Andrew', 'Luke', 'Shaney', 'Luke', 'Moley', 'Moley', 'Rob']

The list comprehension is to just exclude empty strings.

answered Feb 05 '15 at 19:36

Kamehameha

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Concatenating certain parts of a list. Removing spaces.

4 Answers4