Python - Get first word form a string

If you have a python string and you want to get the very first word from that string, you can use the below code.

my_str = "Hello World"
first_word = my_str.split(' ', 1)[0]
print(first_word)
# -> Hello

Output

Hello

We are using the .split() method of python string here. First, we are splitting the string using spaces between the words then we are getting the first-word using index 0.

You can also write the above code example as below:

my_str = "Programming is fun"

result = my_str.split(' ')[0]

print(result)

Output

Programming

Example 2: Using partition() method of python string

my_str = "Hello World"
first_word = my_str.partition(' ')[0]
print(first_word)
# -> Hello

In the above code, we are getting the first word using the partition() method. We are passing the space separator to the method and getting the first-word using index 0.

Example to get first words and the rest of the words

str_1 = "Programming is cool"
(first_word, rest_of_the_words) = str_1.split(maxsplit=1)

print(first_word) # -> Programming
print(rest_of_the_words) # -> is cool

The above code example will return the first word in the first_word variable and the rest of the words in the rest_of_the_words variable.

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