I wanted to add ul li tags but not able to do

Question

If the element starts with -, I want to try to add li tags. My ultimate goal to achieve something like this

lst = ['Para 1', '-list 01', 'para 2', '-list 2', '-list 3', 'para 3', 'para 4']

I want to achieve

<!-- wp:paragraph --><p>Para 1</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:list --><ul><li>list 01</li></ul><!-- /wp:list --><!-- wp:paragraph --><p>para 2</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:list --><ul><li>list 2</li><li>list 3</li></ul><!-- /wp:list --><!-- wp:paragraph --><p>para 3</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --><p>para 4</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> 

I am able to do it by these codes

lst = ['Para 1', '-list 01', 'para 2', '-list 2', '-list 3', 'para 3', 'para 4']

prfix_p = '<!-- wp:paragraph --><p>'
suffix_p = '</p><!-- /wp:paragraph -->'

prefix_li = '<li>'
suffix_li = '</li>'

ul_list_pre = '<!-- wp:list --><ul>'
ul_list_suff = '</ul><!-- /wp:list -->'

start = True
end = True
result = []
for i in lst:
    if i.startswith('-'):
        if not start:
            result.append(prefix_li + i[1:] + suffix_li)
        else:
            result.append(ul_list_pre + prefix_li + i[1:] + suffix_li)
            start = False
    else:
        if not start:
            result.append(ul_list_suff + prfix_p + i + suffix_p)
            start = True
        else:
            result.append(prfix_p + i + suffix_p)
print("".join(result))

But The same code won't work for this list

lst = ['Para 1', '-list 01']

I got this output

<!-- wp:paragraph --><p>Para 1</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:list --><ul><li>list 01</li>

Missing </ul><!-- /wp:list -->

What did I do wrong? How Can I able to do this output

<!-- wp:paragraph --><p>Para 1</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:list --><ul><li>list 01</li></ul><!-- /wp:list -->

Thanks

Answer 1

Try itertools.groupby:

from itertools import groupby

lst = ["Para 1", "-list 01", "para 2", "-list 2", "-list 3", "para 3", "para 4"]

out = ""
for k, g in groupby(lst, lambda s: s.startswith("-")):
    if k:
        out += "<!-- wp:list --><ul>"
        for item in g:
            out += f"<li>{item.strip('-')}</li>"
        out += "</ul><!-- /wp:list -->"
    else:
        for item in g:
            out += f"<!-- wp:paragraph --><p>{item}</p><!-- /wp:paragraph -->"

print(out)

Prints:

<!-- wp:paragraph --><p>Para 1</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:list --><ul><li>list 01</li></ul><!-- /wp:list --><!-- wp:paragraph --><p>para 2</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:list --><ul><li>list 2</li><li>list 3</li></ul><!-- /wp:list --><!-- wp:paragraph --><p>para 3</p><!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --><p>para 4</p><!-- /wp:paragraph -->