How to split a string by commas positioned outside of parenthesis?

Question

I got a string of such format:

\"Wilbur Smith (Billy, son of John), Eddie Murphy (John), Elvis Presley, Jane Doe (Jane Doe)\"

so basicly i

Answer 1

split by ")"

>>> s="Wilbur Smith (Billy, son of John), Eddie Murphy (John), Elvis Presley, Jane Doe (Jane Doe)"
>>> s.split(")")
['Wilbur Smith (Billy, son of John', ', Eddie Murphy (John', ', Elvis Presley, Jane Doe (Jane Doe', '']
>>> for i in s.split(")"):
...   print i.split("(")
...
['Wilbur Smith ', 'Billy, son of John']
[', Eddie Murphy ', 'John']
[', Elvis Presley, Jane Doe ', 'Jane Doe']
['']

you can do further checking to get those names that doesn't come with ().