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Python | Split flatten String List

Sometimes, while working with Python Strings, we can have problem in which we need to perform the split of strings on a particular deliminator. In this, we might need to flatten this to a single String List. Let’s discuss certain ways in which this task can be performed.

Method #1 : Using list comprehension + split() + extend() 

The combination of above functions can be used to perform this task. In this, we perform the task of split, using split() and add split elements in list using extend(). 




# Python3 code to demonstrate working of
# Split flatten String List
# Using list comprehension + split() + extend()
 
# initializing list
test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
 
# printing original list
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))
 
# Split flatten String List
# Using list comprehension + split() + extend()
res = []
[res.extend(idx.split("-")) for idx in test_list]
 
# printing result
print("The String List after extension : " + str(res))

Output
The original list is : ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
The String List after extension : ['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time Complexity: O(n) where n is the total number of values in the list “test_list”. 
Auxiliary Space: O(n) where n is the total number of values in the list “test_list”.

Method #2 : Using split() + join() 

This is one of the way in which this task can be performed. In this, we perform the task of extension using join() and split(). 




# Python3 code to demonstrate working of
# Split flatten String List
# Using split() + join()
 
# initializing list
test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
 
# printing original list
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))
 
# Split flatten String List
# Using split() + join()
res = '-'.join(test_list).split('-')
 
# printing result
print("The String List after extension : " + str(res))

Output
The original list is : ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
The String List after extension : ['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the length of the input list. This is because we’re using the split() + join() which has a time complexity of O(n) in the worst case.
Auxiliary Space: O(n), as we’re using additional space res other than the input list itself with the same size of input list.

Method #3: Using itertools.chain.from_iterable




# Using itertools.chain.from_iterable
 
import itertools
 
test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
 
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))
 
res = list(itertools.chain.from_iterable(
    map(lambda x: x.split('-'), test_list)))
 
print("The String List after extension : " + str(res))

Output
The original list is : ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
The String List after extension : ['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the total number of characters in all strings.
Auxiliary Space: O(n), since we are storing the result in a list.

Method #4: Using the reduce function from the functools library




import functools
 
# initialize a list of strings
test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))
# use the reduce function from the functools library to flatten the list of strings
res = functools.reduce(lambda x, y: x + y.split("-"), test_list, [])
 
# print the result
print(res)
# this code is contributed by Asif_Shaik

Output
The original list is : ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time Complexity: O(n)
Auxiliary Space: O(n)

Method #5: Using the str.replace() method: 

A list of strings and extracts individual words from them, combining all of the words into a single list. It does so by initializing an empty list called words, iterating over each string in the original list, removing any hyphens from the string, and then splitting it into individual words using the split() function. The resulting words are then added to the words list using the extend() method, which concatenates two lists.

In essence, this code is designed to extract individual words from a list of strings, and produce a new list that contains all of the words from the original list. It does this by first removing hyphens from the strings, and then using the split() function to extract individual words from each string. Finally, the code concatenates all of the resulting lists of words into a single list, which it outputs.




test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
# create an empty list to hold the words
words = []
# printing original list
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))
 
# iterate over each string in the list
for string in test_list:
    # remove any hyphens in the string and split it into words
    words_in_string = string.replace('-', ' ').split()
    # add the words to the list of words
    words.extend(words_in_string)
print("The String List after extension : " + str(words))
# This code is contributed by Jyothi pinjala

Output
The original list is : ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
The String List after extension : ['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time Complexity: O(n)
Auxiliary  Space: O(n)

Method 6: Using nested for loops:

Step-by-step approach:

  1. Initialize the list test_list.
  2. Print the original list using the print() function.
  3. Initialize an empty list res to store the flattened list.
  4. Use nested for loops to iterate over each string in test_list, and then iterate over each word in the string by calling the split(‘-‘) method.
  5. Append each word to the res list.
  6. Print the flattened list using the print() function.




# Python3 code to demonstrate working of
# Split flatten String List
# Using nested for loops
     
# initializing list
test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
 
# printing original list
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))
 
# Split flatten String List
# Using nested for loops
res = []
for string in test_list:
    for word in string.split('-'):
        res.append(word)
 
# printing result
print("The String List after extension : " + str(res))

Output
The original list is : ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
The String List after extension : ['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time complexity: O(n*m), where n is the length of the test_list and m is the maximum number of words in a string.
Auxiliary space: O(n*m), where n is the length of the test_list and m is the maximum number of words in a string, as we need to store all the words in the flattened list.

Method 7: Using reduce(), split(), and operator.concat

In this method, reduce() function, the concat() function is applied to each element of the input list after splitting the string using the split() method. The resulting list of split strings is then flattened into a single list. Then result is printed using the print() function.




from functools import reduce
import operator
 
# initializing list
test_list = ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
 
# printing original list
print("The original list is: " + str(test_list))
 
# Split flatten String List
# Using reduce() + split() + operator.concat
res = reduce(operator.concat, [sub.split('-') for sub in test_list])
 
# printing result
print("The String List after extension: " + str(res))

Output
The original list is: ['gfg-is-best', 'for-all', 'geeks-and', 'CS']
The String List after extension: ['gfg', 'is', 'best', 'for', 'all', 'geeks', 'and', 'CS']

Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the total number of characters in all strings in the input list.
Auxiliary  Space: O(n), since the output list contains all the characters from the input strings.


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