Question

what would be the best way to split this in python. (address, city, state, zip)

<div class="adtxt">7616 W Belmont Ave<br />Chicago, IL 60634-3225</div>

in some case zip code is as

 <div class="adtxt">7616 W Belmont Ave<br />Chicago, IL 60634</div>

Answer 1

Depending on how tight or lax you want to be on various aspects that can’t be deduced from a single example, something like the following should work…:

import re

s = re.compile(r'^<div.*?>([^<]+)<br.*?>([^,]+), (\w\w) (\d{5}-\d{4})</div>$')
mo = s.match(thestring)
if mo is None:
  raise ValueError('No match for %r' % thestring)
address, city, state, zip = mo.groups()