In Python, how do I split a string and keep the separators?

Question

>>> re.split('(\W)', 'foo/bar spam\neggs')
['foo', '/', 'bar', ' ', 'spam', '\n', 'eggs']

If you are splitting on newline, use splitlines(True).

>>> 'line 1\nline 2\nline without newline'.splitlines(True)
['line 1\n', 'line 2\n', 'line without newline']

(Not a general solution, but adding this here in case someone comes here not realizing this method existed.)

another example, split on non alpha-numeric and keep the separators

import re
a = "foo,bar@candy*ice%cream"
re.split('([^a-zA-Z0-9])',a)

output:

['foo', ',', 'bar', '@', 'candy', '*', 'ice', '%', 'cream']

explanation

re.split('([^a-zA-Z0-9])',a)

() <- keep the separators
[] <- match everything in between
^a-zA-Z0-9 <-except alphabets, upper/lower and numbers.

If you have only 1 separator, you can employ list comprehensions:

text = 'foo,bar,baz,qux'  
sep = ','

Appending/prepending separator:

result = [x+sep for x in text.split(sep)]
#['foo,', 'bar,', 'baz,', 'qux,']
# to get rid of trailing
result[-1] = result[-1].strip(sep)
#['foo,', 'bar,', 'baz,', 'qux']

result = [sep+x for x in text.split(sep)]
#[',foo', ',bar', ',baz', ',qux']
# to get rid of trailing
result[0] = result[0].strip(sep)
#['foo', ',bar', ',baz', ',qux']

Separator as it's own element:

result = [u for x in text.split(sep) for u in (x, sep)]
#['foo', ',', 'bar', ',', 'baz', ',', 'qux', ',']
results = result[:-1]   # to get rid of trailing