How to Convert String to List in Python

In this tutorial, you will learn how to convert string to list in Python programming.

In python 3, the list() function converts a string to a list. The syntax of the list() function is as follows:

list('string')

The list function takes a string as an argument. Following is an example:

my_list = list('Hello World')

print(my_list)

In the above example, we converted the string ‘Hello World’ to a Python list and stored it in a new variable called my_list.

The list function takes a string as its argument and converts each character in that string (including spaces) to a list item.

Following is another string to list example:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello)

print(my_list)

In this example, we have a string variable called hello. We converted it to a list and stored it in a new variable called my_list. The original string variable remains the same.

Splitting a string

You can use the split() method and specify a character you want to treat as the separator (delimiter).

In the following example, we will use the split method to convert a comma-separated string into a list.

string = "1,2,3,4,5"
my_list = string.split(',')
print(my_list)

The result of the split is a list:

['1', '2', '3', '4', '5']

String to List Examples with String Slicing

Get the first character of the string and convert it to a list:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello[0])

Get the last character and convert it to a Python list:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello[-1])

Convert string to a list in reverse order:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello[::-1])

Extract the first five characters (From 0 index up to, but not including the fifth index) and convert them to a list:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello[0:5])

Get the last five characters and convert them to a Python list:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello[-1:-6:-1])

Extract and convert every third letter up to (but not including) index location 8:

hello = 'Hello World'
my_list = list(hello[:8:3])