How do I trim the number of words in Python?

Question

For example...

s = 'The fox jumped over a big brown log.'

k = FUNCTION(s,4)

k should be... "The fox jumped over"

I can write my own function that splits on whitespace, cuts the list and then joins the list. But that is too much work.

Anyone else knows a simpler way?

Answer 1

Something like this:

def f(s, n):
    return ' '.join(s.split()[:n])

But it is still splitting, slicing and joining...

Answer 2

Why do you say "that is too much work"? Too much work for you, or too much for the computer? Is that code part of some performance critical code?

Just do what works and move on to something more important.

Answer 3

x = "Hello how are you?"
' '.join(x.split()[1:3])
>>> "how are"

you can then change the numbers 1 and 3 in the list to get which words you want it to return

def split_me(string, start, end, skip):
    return ' '.join(string.split()[start:end:skip])

remember lists are indexed starting at 0 and the skip is so you can skip words:

split_me("Hello how are you", 0, 3, 2)
>>> 'hello are'

Answer 4

Try something like this:

def f(s, n):
    return " ".join( s.split()[:n] )