using 'or' condition in re.split

Question

I have a list of strings each one of those needs to be split when an 'y' or 'm' is found:

mylist = ['3m10y','10y20y','18m2y']

in the following items:

splitlist = [['3m','10y'],['10y','20y'],['18m','2y']]

i was thinking of using re.split() but I cannot use the 'or' condition in order to tell the function to split either when it finds an 'm' or an 'y'.

any help appreciated! thanks

Answer 1

Try findall instead of split:

>>> re.findall(r'\d+[ym]', '3m10y')
['3m', '10y']

[my] is m or y.

Answer 2

>>> items = re.split(r'(m|y)', '10m2y4m55y55y53m')
>>> items
['10', 'm', '2', 'y', '4', 'm', '55', 'y', '55', 'y', '53', 'm', '']
>>> [''.join(p) for p in zip(items[::2], items[1::2])]
['10m', '2y', '4m', '55y', '55y', '53m']