Iterate over a string 2 (or n) characters at a time in Python

Question

Earlier today I needed to iterate over a string 2 characters at a time for parsing a string formatted like \"+c-R+D-E\" (there are a few extra letters).

Answer 1

The other answers work well for n = 2, but for the general case you could try this:

def slicen(s, n, truncate=False):
    nslices = len(s) / n
    if not truncate and (len(s) % n):
        nslices += 1
    return (s[i*n:n*(i+1)] for i in range(nslices))

>>> s = '+c-R+D-e'
>>> for op, code in slicen(s, 2):
...     print op, code
... 
+ c
- R
+ D
- e

>>> for a, b, c in slicen(s, 3):
...     print a, b, c
... 
+ c -
R + D
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
ValueError: need more than 2 values to unpack

>>> for a, b, c in slicen(s,3,True):
...     print a, b, c
... 
+ c -
R + D