Split a string by spaces — preserving quoted substrings — in Python

Question

I have a string which is like this:

this is \"a test\"

I\'m trying to write something in Python to split it up by space while ignoring spac

Answer 1

To preserve quotes use this function:

def getArgs(s):
    args = []
    cur = ''
    inQuotes = 0
    for char in s.strip():
        if char == ' ' and not inQuotes:
            args.append(cur)
            cur = ''
        elif char == '"' and not inQuotes:
            inQuotes = 1
            cur += char
        elif char == '"' and inQuotes:
            inQuotes = 0
            cur += char
        else:
            cur += char
    args.append(cur)
    return args