How to Split a String

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-11-29, imho <certo at comeno.it> wrote:
> Siah ha scritto:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I need to convert the string: '(a, b, "c", d, "e")' into the following
>> list ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']. Much like a csv reader does. I usually
>> use the split function, but this mini-monster wouldn't properly get
>> split up due to those random quotations postgresql returns to me.
>> 
>> Please help me with this,
>> Thanks,
>> Sia
>
> One solution:
>
> >>> s = '(a, b, "c", d, "e")'
> >>> print [x.strip('" ') for x in s.strip('()').split(',')]
> ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']

That fails when a quoted string contains commas:

>>> s = '(a, b, "c", d, "e,f,g")'
>>> print [x.strip('" ') for x in s.strip('()').split(',')]
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g']

I presume the correct result would be

['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e,f,g']

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! I wonder if I could
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