How can I split lines based on characters in python?

Question

I've recently started working with Python 2.7 and I've got an assignment in which I get a text file containing data separated with space. I would need to split every line into strings containing only one type of data. Here's an example:

Bruce Wayne 10012-34321 2016.02.20. 231231
John Doe 10201-11021 2016.01.10. 2310456
Chris Taylor 10001-31021 2015.12.30. 524432
James Michael Kent 10210-41011 2016.02.03. 3235332

I want to separate them by name, id, date, balance but the only thing I know is split which I can't really use because the last given name has three parts instead of two. How can I split a line based on charactersWhat could be the solution in this case?

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You'll want to use str.rsplit() and supply a max number of splits, like this:

>>> s = 'James Michael Kent 10210-41011 2016.02.03. 3235332'
>>> s.rsplit(' ', 3)
['James Michael Kent', '10210-41011', '2016.02.03.', '3235332']

>>> s = 'Chris Taylor 10001-31021 2015.12.30. 524432'
>>> s.rsplit(' ', 3)
['Chris Taylor', '10001-31021', '2015.12.30.', '524432']