using .find to find the space in a line Python

user_18574013 0
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im currently using this code

position= line.find(" ")

to help me find a position for example in the case of a name: Coner John Smith

how do i single out the smith, currently my line of code wont help because it positions itself on the first space it finds, how do rewrite the code to find the second space in a line?

list python string
3 Answers

Use find() twice:

firstspace = line.find(" ")
if firstspace != -1:
    secondspace = line.find(" ", firstspace+1)

The second argument to str.find() is the position to start searching from.

user_14918950

The answer to your literal question is:

position= line.find(" ", line.find(" ") + 1)

What this does is find the first space in line, and then find the first space in line, starting the search on the position of the first space, plus one. Giving you the position of the second space.

But as @barmar points out, this is probably an example of an XY problem

Do you want the second space? Or the last space (e.g. 'Mary Jo Suzy Smith')?

Do you want the position of the space? Or are you really just after the last word in the string? Do you care about any interpunction following the last word in the string (e.g. 'John Smith!')

Every case has a slightly different better answer.

To get the last word, you could:

last_word = line.split(' ')[-1]

To find the last space, if you need it for something else:

last_space = line.rfind(' ')

Etc.

user_43901600

If you want the last space, use rfind or if you really want the last word, .rsplit() for it

>>> "Coner John Smith".rfind(" ")
10
>>> "Coner John Smith".rsplit(" ", 1)[-1]
'Smith'

If you want the Nth space, you can repeatedly locate with .find(), which can accept a start arg for where to begin finding!

source_text = "Coner John Smith"
N = 2

index = -1  # search from index 0
for _ in range(N):
    index = source_text.find(" ", index + 1)
    # opportunity to discover if missing or `break` on last, etc.
user_45410450
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