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

Try this:

  def adamsplit(s):
    result = []
    inquotes = False
    for substring in s.split('"'):
      if not inquotes:
        result.extend(substring.split())
      else:
        result.append(substring)
      inquotes = not inquotes
    return result

Some test strings:

'This is "a test"' -> ['This', 'is', 'a test']
'"This is \'a test\'"' -> ["This is 'a test'"]