From the docs:

str.split([sep[, maxsplit]])

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done (thus, the list will have at most maxsplit+1 elements).

s.split('mango', 1)[1]
Answer from Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams on Stack Overflow
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EyeHunts
tutorial.eyehunts.com › home › python split() function | split string example
Python Split() Function | Split String Example - EyeHunts
May 18, 2021 - Python Split function breaks up a string at the specified separator and returns a list of Strings. Python Split string by space, character, comma, get first
Discussions

Split a string only by first space in python - Stack Overflow
I have string for example: "238 NEO Sports". I want to split this string only at the first space. The output should be ["238","NEO Sports"]. One way I could think of is by using split() and finally More on stackoverflow.com
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Get+split split a string and get the first element
Looks like you are missing a semi-colon after your description, and the close bracket for the split function is in the wrong place · The function split has two parameters, and without this semicolon you only have one parameter · Mapping – What is mapping? What can I map More on community.make.com
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November 3, 2024
What is the "best" way to get the first word in sentence?
You can limit the number of splits. thousand_words = "..." first = thousand_words.split(maxsplit=1)[0] print(first) This way, it only splits the first time, so you'd end up with the first word and a string of 999 words. More on reddit.com
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November 24, 2022
Using Split only on the first occurrence of a character?
Why not just split with (.) , grab the last two fields; contoso and com ...then join the two with a dot when you're all done? This covers FQDN that might have multiple subdomains too, fwiw. $var.Split(".")[-2,-1] -join "." #this gives you "contoso.com" More on reddit.com
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › python-seperate-first-word-from-string
Python - Separate first word from String - GeeksforGeeks
July 12, 2025 - This can be efficiently done using methods like split() or partition() which split the string at spaces or specific characters, allowing us to isolate the first word. split() method divides the string into words (by whitespace by default) and ...
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Finxter
blog.finxter.com › home › learn python blog › python | split string keep first
Python | Split String Keep First - Be on the Right Side of Change
December 15, 2022 - Approach: You can use the maxsplit argument to your advantage and solve the given question by setting maxsplit = 1. This means the string will be split along the specified separator only once, i.e., at the first occurrence of the separator.
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ProgrammingBasic
programmingbasic.com › home › python › split string and get the first element using python
Split String and get the first element using python | ProgrammingBasic
So, here we have set maxsplit to 1 which means the split()method will perform only one split. str = 'Python is awesome' str_split = str.split(' ',1) print(str_split) // ['Python', 'is awesome']
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Notebook Community
notebook.community › amirziai › learning › python › Get the first element after split
Get the first element after split
The method returns all the other elements in the last which is not needed · In [1]: def get_first_split(input_string, split_by=' '): try: input_string_stripped = input_string.strip() split_by_index = input_string_stripped.find(split_by) if split_by_index == -1: return input_string_stripped else: substring = input_string_stripped[:split_by_index].strip() return substring except AttributeError: return '' In [2]: get_first_split(' this is _ a test', '_') Out[2]: 'this is' In [3]: get_first_split('some_group_1', '_') Out[3]: 'some' In [8]: x = 'XQWRQW' * 100000 x += ' ' + ('XWQQWFW' * 100000) In [9]: len(x) Out[9]: 1300001 ·
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Arab Psychology
scales.arabpsychology.com › home › stats › how to split a string and extract the first element
Question: Split Character String And Get First Element
November 21, 2025 - This time the strsplit() function gets the second element. Also note that we can change the space in the strsplit() function to a different delimiter, such as a dash, to separate a string variable based on dashes and get the first element:
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Finxter
blog.finxter.com › python-split-string-get-element
Python | Split String Get Element – Be on the Right Side of Change
December 2, 2022 - # Example 1 text = "Welcome to the world of Python!" # Solution res = text.split() print("Split substrings: ", res) print("Required Element: ", res[3]) # Alternate One line formulation (res, ele) = (text.split(), text.split()[3]) print(f'Split substrings: {res}\nRequired Element: {ele}') # Example 2 text = "cn=username,ou=group1,ou=group2,dc=domain1,dc=enterprise" # Method 1: Using a For Loop li = [] for pair in text.split(','): li.append(pair.split('=')[1]) print(li) print('/'.join(li)) # Method 2: Using List Comprehension and join result = [pair.split('=')[1] for pair in text.split(',')] print(result) print('/'.join(result)) # Method 3: Using regex import re print(re.sub(",.*?=", "/", text[3:]))
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Bobby Hadz
bobbyhadz.com › blog › python-split-string-on-one-or-more-spaces
How to Split a string by Whitespace in Python | bobbyhadz
Copied!my_str = 'one two three four' ... # 👉️ ['one', 'two three four'] ... The str.split() method splits the string into a list of substrings using a delimiter....
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › python-string-split
Python split() Method - GeeksforGeeks
4 weeks ago - Return Value: Returns a list of strings containing the parts obtained after splitting the original string. When no separator is specified, consecutive whitespace characters are treated as a single separator. ... Explanation: string contains multiple spaces between "Hello" and "world" and split() automatically treats consecutive spaces as a single separator.
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Real Python
realpython.com › python-split-string
How to Split a String in Python – Real Python
November 4, 2024 - Because path starts with a forward slash, .split() cuts the string right away and creates an empty string as the first element. There was nothing before the first occurrence of the separator after all.
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Medium
medium.com › @python-javascript-php-html-css › extracting-the-first-word-from-a-string-in-python-417f6dc8e86f
Extracting the First Word from a String in Python | by Denis Bélanger 💎⚡✨ | Medium
December 28, 2024 - By specifying an index of 0, we retrieve the first element from the resulting list. This approach is simple and efficient for strings like “fr FRA”, where words are separated by spaces.
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Make Community
community.make.com › questions
Get+split split a string and get the first element - Questions - Make Community
November 3, 2024 - Looks like you are missing a semi-colon after your description, and the close bracket for the split function is in the wrong place · The function split has two parameters, and without this semicolon you only have one parameter · Mapping – What is mapping? What can I map
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Simplilearn
simplilearn.com › home › resources › software development › python split() function: how to use split() in python
Python split() Function: Syntax, and Usage Guide
July 31, 2025 - The split() function in Python can be used to split a given string or a line by specifying one of the substrings of the given string as the delimiter.
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Note.nkmk.me
note.nkmk.me › home › python
Split a String in Python (Delimiter, Line Breaks, Regex) | note.nkmk.me
May 4, 2025 - Since empty strings are considered falsy in Python, you can use a list comprehension to filter them out. ... When sep is omitted, the string is split by any whitespace and consecutive whitespace is treated as one. In this case, the resulting list will not include empty strings, even if the original string starts or ends with spaces.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/learnpython › what is the "best" way to get the first word in sentence?
r/learnpython on Reddit: What is the "best" way to get the first word in sentence?
November 24, 2022 -

So there are a million StackOverflow posts on this topic but I couldn't find the one for my exact use case and concerns. I'm trying to create a reddit bot which gets summoned through a trigger word, which should be the first word in a comment.

For example this sentence:

str1 = "trigger123! Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" 

the trigger (which is the first word) is the string "trigger123!".

Now I know you can split a string by spaces into a list of words using:

str1.split()[0] # returns 'trigger123!'

My only concern (which is probably premature optimization) is what if the string is very large, like 1000 words or something, and I call split only to just use the first word. With modern computers this probably isn't an issue but I'm wondering if there's a better way.

Like is there a built-in function to ".split()" only the first N words in a string? I know I could also write my own function to detect the first space and store that, but just wanted to see if there exists something already.

What about simply checking the first N characters and seeing if it matches my trigger? Like "trigger123!" is 11 characters so what if I always check the first 11 characters to see if it matches? Is that better than the split method?

I feel like I'm overthinking this lol

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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python-string-split
Python String split() - GeeksforGeeks
April 2, 2025 - Here we are using the Python String split() function to split different Strings into a list, separated by different characters in each case. Example: In the above code, we have defined the variable 'text' with the string 'geeks for geeks' then ...