Split with single colon but not double colon using regex

Question

I have a string like this

\"yJdz:jkj8h:jkhd::hjkjh\"

I want to split it using colon as a separator, but not a double colon. Desired result:

Answer 1

You can do this with lookahead and lookbehind, if you want:

>>> s = "yJdz:jkj8h:jkhd::hjkjh"
>>> l = re.split("(?>> print l
['yJdz', 'jkj8h', 'jkhd::hjkjh']

This regex essentially says "match a : that is not followed by a : or preceded by a :"