# Explode Phone Number (Python!)

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/explode-phone-number-python/193998>\
**Category:** open source\
**Created:** [July 19, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/explode-phone-number-python/193998 "2006-07-19T20:12:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jeff\_Wheeler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@Jeff\_Wheeler](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Jeff_Wheeler)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/explode-phone-number-python/193998/1 "2006-07-19T20:12:53Z")

</div>

Wahoo! I wrote my first python script that does something. It extracts a phone number out of a string… and divides it up into an array.

```auto
def extract_phone_number(number):
    phone_number = ''
    for index in range(len(number)):
        if number[index].isdigit():
            phone_number += number[index]
    
    return [[phone_number.zfill(12)[-12:-10]], 
            [phone_number.zfill(12)[-10:-7]], 
            [phone_number[-7:-4]], 
            [phone_number[-4:None]]]

```

Use it like this…

```auto
extract_phone_number("512-555-3012")
extract_phone_number("11 512 555 3012")
extract_phone_number("5553012")

```

Anybody that knows python: Am I doing this right, or am I missing something obvious?