Reverse words in string - same order - including whitespace

Question

I am trying to reverse the letters of each words contained in a given string, keeping the same word order and also keeping the same whitespace.

So 'This is an example!' should return: 'sihT si na !elpmaxe' (note two spaces between each word).

The solution I wrote doesn't deal with this whitespace:

def reverse_words(str1):
    list1 = str1.split()
    list2 = []
    for e in list1:
        e = e[::-1]
        list2.append(e)
    return ' '.join(list2)

Answer 1

If you want to preserve white space then use regex:

>>> import re
>>> s = 'This is an example!'
>>> re.sub(r'\S+', lambda m:m.group(0)[::-1], s)
'sihT si na !elpmaxe'
>>> s = 'This is an    example!'
>>> re.sub(r'\S+', lambda m:m.group(0)[::-1], s)
'sihT si na    !elpmaxe'