Split a quoted string with a delimiter

Question

I want to split a string with a delimiter white space. but it should handle quoted strings intelligently. E.g. for a string like

\"John Smith\" Ted Barry 
<         


        

Answer 1

Try this ugly bit of code.

    String str = "hello my dear \"John Smith\" where is Ted Barry";
    List list = Arrays.asList(str.split("\\s"));
    List resultList = new ArrayList();
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    for(String s : list){
        if(s.startsWith("\"")) {
            builder.append(s.substring(1)).append(" ");
        } else {
            resultList.add((s.endsWith("\"") 
                    ? builder.append(s.substring(0, s.length() - 1)) 
                    : builder.append(s)).toString());
            builder.delete(0, builder.length());
        }
    }
    System.out.println(resultList);