While working with lists, we may get AttributeError list object has no attribute split error which occurs when we tried to split the list in Python using the split method. The error clearly says that the list object in Python does not have any attribute named split which means there is no such operation on the list available that we are trying to perform. In this short article, we will learn how we can solve the AttributeError list object has no attribute split error using various methods. Moreover, we will also learn what the error actually means and what are the reasons for getting this error.
Solve AttributeError list object has no attribute split in Python
The error clearly says that we are trying to perform splitting on the list object using the split function which is not possible and allowed in Python. Python lists cannot be divided into separated lists based on characters using the split method. The split method can be used to split the individual elements of the list, which we will discuss in this short article.
An example of the error is:
# creating a list
list1 = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
# performing the split method
list1.split()Output:
As you can see, we got the AttributeError list object has no attribute split error. If you are trying to split the list and are getting this error, then we will solve various methods to split the list without getting any errors.
Split individual elements of the list
If you are trying to split individual elements in the list using split then you have first to access each element and then split them separately. Let us say that we have the following list and we want to have a list of the first element separated based on commas:
# list
list1 = ['a,b,c,d', 'e,f,g,h']
# splitting the list using split
list2 = list1[0].split(',')
# print
print(list2)Output:
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']As shown, we have split the first element of the list using the split method:
Using for loop
If you want to have a new list of all the elements that are split based on a specific element/symbol then we can use the for loop to iterate through the list and split each element:
# list
list1 = ['a,b,c,d', 'e,f,g,h']
list2 = []
for i in list1:
# splitting the list using split
list2.append(i.split(','))
# print
print(list2)Output:
[['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'], ['e', 'f', 'g', 'h']]As you can see, now we are not getting AttributeError list object has no attribute split error because we are applying the split() method on individual elements:
Using list comprehension with the split method
Another method to get rid of AttributeError list object has no attribute split error and using the split method correctly is to use list comprehensions. We can use the list comprehension method when we are supposed to split the string in the list into a list of individual characters.
# list
list1 = ['Bashir']
# using list comprehesion
list2 = [i for i in list1[0]]
# printing
print(list2)Output:
['B', 'a', 's', 'h', 'i', 'r']So, the script will take the first element from the list and will iterate through the element, and return a list with each character separated.
How to split the list itself?
If you want to split the list itself not the individual elements then you can use the slicing method. In Python, we have a slicing method to perform splitting into lists.
Let us take a list and split the list into two parts using the slicing method.
# list
list1 = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
# slicing the list
part1 = list1[:2]
part2= list1[2:]
# printing
print(part1)
print(part2)Output:
['a', 'b']
['c', 'd']As you can see, we have used the slicing method to split the list into two parts.
Slice the list
If you want to get the sublist or slice the list, then we can use the slicing method rather than using the split() method which is not allowed. For slicing a list, you need to first understand the concept of indexing in Python.
In Python, the indexing starts from 0 which represents the first element, 1 represents the second element, and so on.
Let us say that we want to get the first 5 elements of the list. We can use the slicing method to get that as shown below:
# creating a list
list1 = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
# slicing the list
list1[:5]Output:
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]As you can see, we got the first five elements using the slicing method.
Understanding the error – AttributeError list object has no attribute split
If you are still facing the issue or want to know what the error actually means so that in the future you can solve such an error by yourself, then you are welcome to read this section where we will explain the error in more detail:
As you can see the error, AttributeError list object has no attribute split error has two parts. The first part tells us about the category of the error which in this case is the AttributeError and the second part tells us the error more specifically. It clearly says that we are applying a split function on a list object which is not allowed.
What is AttributeError?
The Python AttributeError is an exception that occurs when an attribute reference or assignment fails. This can occur when an attempt is made to reference an attribute on a value that does not support the attribute.
Now let us go through the concepts that we have used in the above solution section to solve the problem;
What is for loop?
A for loop is used for iterating over a sequence (that is either a list, a tuple, a dictionary, a set, or a string). This is less like the for the keyword in other programming languages and works more like an iterator method as found in other object-orientated programming languages.
What is list comprehension in Python?
List comprehension in Python is a concise way of creating lists from the ones that already exist. It provides a shorter syntax to create new lists from existing lists and their values
What is split() method in Python?
The split() method splits a string into a list. You can specify the separator, the default separator is any whitespace. Note: When maxsplit is specified, the list will contain the specified number of elements plus one.
What is slicing a list in Python?
In short, slicing is a flexible tool to build new lists out of an existing list. Python supports slice notation for sequential data types like lists, strings, tuples, bytes, bytearrays, and ranges. Also, any new data structure can add its support as well.
Summary
In this short article, we learned how we can solve AttributeError list object has no attribute split error. Which occurs when we tried to split the list object using the split() method. We learned four different methods through which we can solve AttributeError list object has no attribute split error and split the list.
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