Python String splitlines() Method

The splitlines() method in Python is used to split a string into a list of lines. This method is particularly useful for processing multi-line strings or reading the content of a file line by line.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. splitlines() Method Syntax
3. Understanding splitlines()
4. Examples
   • Basic Usage
   • Keeping Line Breaks
5. Real-World Use Case
6. Conclusion

Introduction

The splitlines() method allows you to split a string into a list of lines. This is particularly useful for processing text data that spans multiple lines, such as file contents, logs, or user input.

splitlines() Method Syntax

The syntax for the splitlines() method is as follows:

str.splitlines(keepends=False)

Parameters:

• keepends (optional): A boolean value. If True, line breaks are included in the resulting list. Default is False.

Returns:

• A list of lines.

Understanding splitlines()

The splitlines() method splits the string at line boundaries. Line boundaries can be represented by different newline characters, such as \n, \r, or \r\n. The method returns a list of lines without the line break characters, unless the keepends parameter is set to True.

Examples

Basic Usage

To demonstrate the basic usage of splitlines(), we will split a multi-line string into a list of lines.

Example

text = "Hello, world!\nWelcome to Python.\nLet's learn to code."
lines = text.splitlines()
print("Lines:", lines)

Output:

Lines: ['Hello, world!', 'Welcome to Python.', "Let's learn to code."]

Keeping Line Breaks

This example shows how to use the splitlines() method with the keepends parameter set to True to retain the line break characters in the resulting list.

Example

text = "Hello, world!\nWelcome to Python.\nLet's learn to code."
lines = text.splitlines(keepends=True)
print("Lines with line breaks:", lines)

Output:

Lines with line breaks: ['Hello, world!\n', 'Welcome to Python.\n', "Let's learn to code."]

Real-World Use Case

Reading File Contents

In real-world applications, the splitlines() method can be used to read and process the contents of a file line by line.

Example

file_content = """Line 1
Line 2
Line 3"""
lines = file_content.splitlines()
for line in lines:
    print(line)

Output:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3

Processing Logs

You can also use the splitlines() method to process log data, splitting it into individual log entries.

Example

log_data = "Error: Disk full\nWarning: CPU usage high\nInfo: Backup completed"
log_entries = log_data.splitlines()
for entry in log_entries:
    print(entry)

Output:

Error: Disk full
Warning: CPU usage high
Info: Backup completed

Conclusion

The splitlines() method in Python is used for splitting a string into a list of lines. By using this method, you can easily process multi-line text data, such as file contents or logs, in your Python applications.