Split a string that has white spaces, unless they are enclosed within “quotes”?

Question

To make things simple:

string streamR = sr.ReadLine();  // sr.Readline results in:
                                 //                         one \"two two\         


        

Answer 1

You can use the TextFieldParser class that is part of the Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO namespace. (You'll need to add a reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic to your project.):

string inputString = "This is \"a test\" of the parser.";

using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(inputString)))
{
    using (Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.TextFieldParser tfp = new TextFieldParser(ms))
    {
        tfp.Delimiters = new string[] { " " };
        tfp.HasFieldsEnclosedInQuotes = true;
        string[] output = tfp.ReadFields();

        for (int i = 0; i < output.Length; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0}:{1}", i, output[i]);
        }
    }
}

Which generates the output:

0:This
1:is
2:a test
3:of
4:the
5:parser.