Iterate over words of a String in Python

In this article, we’ll explore different ways to iterate over the words in a string using Python.

Let's start with an example to iterate over words in a Python string:

s = "Learning Python is fun"
for word in s.split():
    print(word)

Learning
Python
is
fun

Explanation: Split the string into words and loop through each word

Using split() to Separate Words

Python’s split() method allows us to split a string by whitespace and returns a list of words.

s = "Learning Python is fun"
words = s.split()
print(words)

['Learning', 'Python', 'is', 'fun']

Explanation: Here, split() divides the string at each whitespace, resulting in a list of words.

Iterating Directly with for Loop

Once the string is split into words, we can iterate over each word using a for loop.

s = "Learning Python is fun"
for word in s.split():
    print(word)

Learning
Python
is
fun

Explanation:

• s.split() returns ['Python', 'programming', 'is', 'powerful'].
• The for loop then iterates over this list, printing each word individually.

Using enumerate to Track Index

To keep track of the word position while iterating, we can use enumerate().

s = "Learning Python is fun"
for index, word in enumerate(s.split()):
    print(f"Word {index + 1}: {word}")

Word 1: Learning
Word 2: Python
Word 3: is
Word 4: fun

Explanation: enumerate() provides a counter (index) with each iteration, which helps in keeping track of word positions.

Handling Extra Spaces and Empty Words

Sometimes strings may have extra spaces. split() handles this well.

s = "  Learning   Python  is   fun   "
for word in s.split():
    print(word)

Learning
Python
is
fun

Explanation: split() automatically removes extra spaces.