What I was trying to achieve, was something like this:
>>> camel_case_split("CamelCaseXYZ")
['Camel', 'Case', 'XYZ']
>>> camel_case_split("XYZCamelCase")
['XYZ', 'Camel', 'Case']
So I searched and found this perfect regular expression:
(?<=[a-z])(?=[A-Z])|(?<=[A-Z])(?=[A-Z][a-z])
As the next logical step I tried:
>>> re.split("(?<=[a-z])(?=[A-Z])|(?<=[A-Z])(?=[A-Z][a-z])", "CamelCaseXYZ")
['CamelCaseXYZ']
Why does this not work, and how do I achieve the result from the linked question in python?
Edit: Solution summary
I tested all provided solutions with a few test cases:
string: ''
AplusKminus: ['']
casimir_et_hippolyte: []
two_hundred_success: []
kalefranz: string index out of range # with modification: either [] or ['']
string: ' '
AplusKminus: [' ']
casimir_et_hippolyte: []
two_hundred_success: [' ']
kalefranz: [' ']
string: 'lower'
all algorithms: ['lower']
string: 'UPPER'
all algorithms: ['UPPER']
string: 'Initial'
all algorithms: ['Initial']
string: 'dromedaryCase'
AplusKminus: ['dromedary', 'Case']
casimir_et_hippolyte: ['dromedary', 'Case']
two_hundred_success: ['dromedary', 'Case']
kalefranz: ['Dromedary', 'Case'] # with modification: ['dromedary', 'Case']
string: 'CamelCase'
all algorithms: ['Camel', 'Case']
string: 'ABCWordDEF'
AplusKminus: ['ABC', 'Word', 'DEF']
casimir_et_hippolyte: ['ABC', 'Word', 'DEF']
two_hundred_success: ['ABC', 'Word', 'DEF']
kalefranz: ['ABCWord', 'DEF']
In summary you could say the solution by @kalefranz does not match the question (see the last case) and the solution by @casimir et hippolyte eats a single space, and thereby violates the idea that a split should not change the individual parts. The only difference among the remaining two alternatives is that my solution returns a list with the empty string on an empty string input and the solution by @200_success returns an empty list. I don't know how the python community stands on that issue, so I say: I am fine with either one. And since 200_success's solution is simpler, I accepted it as the correct answer.
As @AplusKminus has explained, re.split() never splits on an empty pattern match. Therefore, instead of splitting, you should try finding the components you are interested in.
Here is a solution using re.finditer() that emulates splitting:
def camel_case_split(identifier):
matches = finditer('.+?(?:(?<=[a-z])(?=[A-Z])|(?<=[A-Z])(?=[A-Z][a-z])|$)', identifier)
return [m.group(0) for m in matches]