I have a single string, which is itself a ma delimited list of quoted strings - which can have mas within them.

Example:

var str = '"long one","short","oh, look","wow.", ""';

I need to split this into an array:

['long one', 'short', 'oh, look', 'wow.', '']

// will take this if it is easier
['"long one"', '"short"', '"oh, look"', '"wow."', '""']

I tried splitting by , but it throws off entries with a ma in them. I also tried splitting by \",, but it creates lob-sided string:

['"long one', '"short', '"oh, look', '"wow.', '"']

I tried splitting by \",\" but causes the same issue but just for the first and last entry:

['"long one', 'short', 'oh, look', 'wow.', '"']

I also tried the regex expression found in this answer, but it adds an empty entry at the start and end of the array:

['', '"long one"', '"short"', '"oh, look"', '"wow."', '""', '']

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

I have a single string, which is itself a ma delimited list of quoted strings - which can have mas within them.

Example:

var str = '"long one","short","oh, look","wow.", ""';

I need to split this into an array:

['long one', 'short', 'oh, look', 'wow.', '']

// will take this if it is easier
['"long one"', '"short"', '"oh, look"', '"wow."', '""']

I tried splitting by , but it throws off entries with a ma in them. I also tried splitting by \",, but it creates lob-sided string:

['"long one', '"short', '"oh, look', '"wow.', '"']

I tried splitting by \",\" but causes the same issue but just for the first and last entry:

['"long one', 'short', 'oh, look', 'wow.', '"']

I also tried the regex expression found in this answer, but it adds an empty entry at the start and end of the array:

['', '"long one"', '"short"', '"oh, look"', '"wow."', '""', '']

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

• javascript
• arrays
• regex
• split

Share Improve this question Follow edited May 23, 2017 at 12:32 CommunityBot 111 silver badge asked Aug 29, 2016 at 15:15 MacMac 1,17366 gold badges2121 silver badges4747 bronze badges 5

• 1 Why not use the regex you found then remove the first and last elements? – Mike Cluck Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 15:16
• 4 Match "(.*?)" – Tushar Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 15:17
• Do these e from a csv file? – Tamas Hegedus Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 15:19
• yes, they do e from a CSV file. @MikeC, you're right, I could do that. I suppose I just didn't want to risk lobbing of some data - on the off chance the extra entries were not attached – Mac Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 15:40
• 1 Since quotes don't appear in quoted strings, and your data is delimited by quotes, it's really as simple as finding all "([^"]*)". This is the simplest solution. If you later add caveats to this simple description, a fuller regex is necessary. – user557597 Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 15:50

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3 Answers 3

Sorted by: Reset to default 7

You could treat it as part of a JSON string and append the necessary parts for parsing as array.

var string ='"long one","short","oh, look","wow.", ""',
    array = JSON.parse('[' + string + ']');
console.log(array);

You can .split() ma , characters if ma is followed by double-quote " character using RegExp /,(?=")/

str.split(/,(?=")/)

var s = '"long one","short","oh, look","wow.", ""';
var answer = s.split(/("*,.?")/gi).filter(function (a) {
  return a.replace(/"/g, '').length > 2
}).map(function (a) {
  return a.replace(/"/g, '')
});
console.log(s);
console.log(answer);