Python's String class has a method called split() which takes a delimiter as optional argument. Default delimiter for it is whitespace. You can use it in the following way:
>>> 'aa-ab-ca'.split('-') ['aa', 'ab', 'ca'] >>> 'abc mno rst'.split(' ') ['abc', 'mno', 'rst']
You can also use regex for this operation. The re.split method takes a delimiter regex and the string and returns the list. For example:
>>> import re >>> re.split('-', 'aa-ab-ca') ['aa', 'ab', 'ca'] >>>re.split(' ', 'abc mno rst') ['abc', 'mno', 'rst']