what does the split function do in python code example

Example 1: separate a string in python

string = "A B C D"
string2 = "E-F-G-H"

# the split() function will return a list
stringlist = string.split()
# if you give no arguments, it will separate by whitespaces by default
# ["A", "B", "C", "D"]

stringlist2 = string2.split("-", 3)
# you can specify the maximum amount of elements the split() function will output
# ["E", "F", "G"]

Example 2: python split

>>> '1,2,3'.split(',')
['1', '2', '3']
>>> '1,2,3'.split(',', maxsplit=1)
['1', '2,3']
>>> '1,2,,3,'.split(',')
['1', '2', '', '3', '']