Combine all elements in list python to string

Use str.join:

>>> words = ['this', 'is', 'a', 'sentence']
>>> '-'.join(words)
'this-is-a-sentence'
>>> ' '.join(words)
'this is a sentence'

Mateen Ulhaq

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answered Sep 17, 2012 at 5:33

Burhan KhalidBurhan Khalid

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11

A more generic way to convert Python lists to strings would be:

>>> my_lst = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>>> my_lst_str = ''.join(map(str, my_lst))
>>> print(my_lst_str)

answered Dec 1, 2015 at 3:11

Aaron SAaron S

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It's very useful for beginners to know why join is a string method.

It's very strange at the beginning, but very useful after this.

The result of join is always a string, but the object to be joined can be of many types (generators, list, tuples, etc).

.join is faster because it allocates memory only once. Better than classical concatenation (see, extended explanation).

Once you learn it, it's very comfortable and you can do tricks like this to add parentheses.

>>> ",".join("12345").join(("(",")"))
Out:
'(1,2,3,4,5)'

>>> list = ["(",")"]
>>> ",".join("12345").join(list)
Out:
'(1,2,3,4,5)'

heilala

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answered May 14, 2016 at 13:55

WallebotWallebot

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Edit from the future: Please don't use the answer below. This function was removed in Python 3 and Python 2 is dead. Even if you are still using Python 2 you should write Python 3 ready code to make the inevitable upgrade easier.

Although @Burhan Khalid's answer is good, I think it's more understandable like this:

from str import join

sentence = ['this','is','a','sentence']

join(sentence, "-") 

The second argument to join() is optional and defaults to " ".

Anupam

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answered Nov 2, 2015 at 1:51

SilentVoidSilentVoid

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list_abc = ['aaa', 'bbb', 'ccc']

string = ''.join(list_abc)
print(string)
>>> aaabbbccc

string = ','.join(list_abc)
print(string)
>>> aaa,bbb,ccc

string = '-'.join(list_abc)
print(string)
>>> aaa-bbb-ccc

string = '\n'.join(list_abc)
print(string)
>>> aaa
>>> bbb
>>> ccc

answered Sep 3, 2020 at 9:18

We can also use Python's reduce function:

from functools import reduce

sentence = ['this','is','a','sentence']
out_str = str(reduce(lambda x,y: x+"-"+y, sentence))
print(out_str)

the Tin Man

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answered Nov 29, 2018 at 11:15

1

We can specify how we join the string. Instead of '-', we can use ' ':

sentence = ['this','is','a','sentence']
s=(" ".join(sentence))
print(s)

the Tin Man

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answered Oct 18, 2019 at 7:46

If you want to generate a string of strings separated by commas in final result, you can use something like this:

sentence = ['this','is','a','sentence']
sentences_strings = "'" + "','".join(sentence) + "'"
print (sentences_strings) # you will get "'this','is','a','sentence'"

Tomerikoo

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answered Jun 30, 2020 at 15:20

CarmorenoCarmoreno

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If you have a mixed content list and want to stringify it, here is one way:

Consider this list:

>>> aa
[None, 10, 'hello']

Convert it to string:

>>> st = ', '.join(map(str, map(lambda x: f'"{x}"' if isinstance(x, str) else x, aa)))
>>> st = '[' + st + ']'
>>> st
'[None, 10, "hello"]'

If required, convert back to the list:

>>> ast.literal_eval(st)
[None, 10, 'hello']

the Tin Man

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answered Jan 27, 2021 at 10:21

1

def eggs(someParameter):
    del spam[3]
    someParameter.insert(3, ' and cats.')


spam = ['apples', 'bananas', 'tofu', 'cats']
eggs(spam)
spam =(','.join(spam))
print(spam)

Paul Roub

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answered May 7, 2020 at 21:18

1

Without .join() method you can use this method:

my_list=["this","is","a","sentence"]

concenated_string=""
for string in range(len(my_list)):
    if string == len(my_list)-1:
        concenated_string+=my_list[string]
    else:
        concenated_string+=f'{my_list[string]}-'
print([concenated_string])
    >>> ['this-is-a-sentence']

So, range based for loop in this example , when the python reach the last word of your list, it should'nt add "-" to your concenated_string. If its not last word of your string always append "-" string to your concenated_string variable.

answered Jul 7, 2020 at 11:03

How do you combine all elements in a list python?

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