Python split and get last element

Split a string and get the last element in Python #

Use the str.rsplit() method with maxsplit set to 1 to split a string and get the last element. The rsplit() method splits from the right and will only perform a single split when maxsplit is set to 1.

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my_str = 'one,two,three,four'

last = my_str.rsplit(',', 1)[-1]

print(last)  # 👉️ 'four'

We used the rsplit() method to split the string from the right.

The str.rsplit method returns a list of the words in the string using the provided separator as the delimiter string.

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my_str = 'one two three'

print(my_str.rsplit(' '))  # 👉️ ['one', 'two', 'three']
print(my_str.rsplit(' ', 1))  # 👉️ ['one two', 'three']

The method takes the following 2 arguments:

Except for splitting from the right, rsplit() behaves like split().

When the maxsplit argument is set to 1, at most 1 split is done.

The last step is to access the last element in the list by accessing the list item at index -1.

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my_str = 'one,two,three,four'

last = my_str.rsplit(',', 1)[-1]

print(last)  # 👉️ 'four'

You can also use the str.split() method in a similar way.

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my_str = 'one-two-three-four'

last = my_str.split('-')[-1]

print(last)  # 👉️ 'four'

If your string ends with the specific separator, you might get a confusing result.

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my_str = 'one-two-three-four-'

last = my_str.rsplit('-', 1)[-1]

# 👇️ ['one-two-three-four', '']
print(my_str.rsplit('-', 1))

print(last)  # 👉️ ""

You can use the str.strip() method to remove the leading or trailing separator.

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my_str = 'one-two-three-four-'

last = my_str.strip('-').rsplit('-', 1)[-1]

print(last)  # 👉️ "four"

We used the str.strip() method to remove any leading or trailing hyphens from the string before calling the rsplit() method.

I use pandas and I have data and the data look like this

FirstName LastName StudentID
FirstName2 LastName2 StudentID2

Then I split it based on 'space' using str.split()

So the data will look like this in DataFrame

[[FirstName, LastName, StudentID],
[FirstName2, LastName2, StudentID2]]

How to take the StudentID for every students only and save it in new column?

ZygD

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asked Dec 10, 2018 at 23:55

Try the below solution:

item["x"]["y"].split(' ')[-1]

0buz

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answered Mar 24, 2020 at 11:06

Use a list comprehension to take the last element of each of the split strings:

ids = [val[-1] for val in your_string.split()]

answered Dec 10, 2018 at 23:57

TimTim

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1

You could do something like this:

import pandas as pd

data = ['FirstName LastName StudentID',
'FirstName2 LastName2 StudentID2']

df = pd.DataFrame(data=data, columns=['text'])

df['id'] = df.text.apply(lambda x: x.split()[-1])

print(df)

Output

text          id
0     FirstName LastName StudentID   StudentID
1  FirstName2 LastName2 StudentID2  StudentID2

Or, as an alternative:

df['id'] = [x.split()[-1] for x in df.text]
print(df)

Output

text          id
0     FirstName LastName StudentID   StudentID
1  FirstName2 LastName2 StudentID2  StudentID2

answered Dec 10, 2018 at 23:58

Dani MesejoDani Mesejo

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I thought I would add this simple solution which doesn't use lists or list comprehension to split an existing column/series and store the last item from the split to a new column/series in the DataFrame

import pandas as pd

data = ['FirstName LastName StudentID',
'FirstName2 LastName2 StudentID2']

df = pd.DataFrame(data=data, columns=['text'])

df['id'] = df.text.str.split(" ").str.get(-1)

Output:

index text id

0 FirstName LastName StudentID StudentID

0 FirstName2 LastName2 StudentID2 StudentID2

answered Sep 5, 2021 at 9:07

Using data frame constructor

pd.DataFrame(df.text.str.split(' ').tolist()).iloc[:,0]
Out[15]: 
0     FirstName
1    FirstName2
Name: 0, dtype: object

answered Dec 11, 2018 at 0:00

BENYBENY

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0

Why not try a simple list comprehension

students = [
    ["FirstName", "LastName", "StudentID"],
    ["FirstName2", "LastName2", "StudentID2"]
]

print([student[2] for student in students])

which will print

['StudentID', 'StudentID2']

answered Dec 10, 2018 at 23:58

finefootfinefoot

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