Trying to parse a string into a list in Python

Question

So I have a string like so:

pattern = "AAaa$$##"

I want to parse it into a list so it outputs letter by letter, but I can't do pattern.split("") cause it gives an error. Like this pattern.split() wont work either, it will just give me back the same string but in a list instead.

I need it to give me a list like this: ["A", "A", "a", "a", "$", "$", "#", "#"]

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Just do

list(pattern)

It creates a list. Save it to any variable and use it. See the Python Docs entry.

For instance, list('abc') returns ['a', 'b', 'c'] and list( (1, 2, 3) ) returns [1, 2, 3]

Although, you can just iterate over the strings like so

>>> for elem in testString:
        # Do Something

Test-

>>> pattern = "AAaa$$##"
>>> list(pattern)
['A', 'A', 'a', 'a', '$', '$', '#', '#']

Answer 2

>>> pattern = 'AAaa$$##'
>>> list(pattern)
['A', 'A', 'a', 'a', '$', '$', '#', '#']

But if you just want to outputs the string letter by letter, there is no need to parse it into a list. The string itself is a sequence.

>>> for letter in pattern:
...     print letter
... 
A
A
a
a
$
$
#
#