Converting string to bulleted list in Python

Question

I got the following string while studying Chapter 6: Manipulating Strings in 'Automate the Boring Stuff with Python' by AI Sweigart:

text = '''Lists of animals
Lists of aquarium life
Lists of biologists by author abbreviation
Lists of cultivars'''

I am expected to convert the string to a bulleted list.

I have split the string using new line as the separator, according to the author's guidelines, then append the list into an empty list.

lines = text.split('\n')
textList = []
for x in lines:
    textList.append(x)

How can I add bullets to the beginning of each item? The author wants the list to appear as follows:

* Lists of animals
* Lists of aquarium life
* Lists of biologists by author abbreviation
* Lists of cultivars

Answer 1

You could do:

text = "\n".join(["* " + substr for substr in text.split("\n")])

This adds an asterisk to every line in text by splitting text by newlines, adding an asterisk and then joining them with a newline in between.

Output:

* Lists of animals
* Lists of aquarium life
* Lists of biologists by author abbreviation
* Lists of cultivars

However, if you want the text as a list of lines instead of a text block, you just omit the "\n".join():

text = ["* " + substr for substr in text.split("\n")]