Splitting a CSV and excluding commas within elements

Question

I\'ve got a CSV string an I want to separate it into an array. However the CSV is a mix of strings and numbers where the strings are enclosed in quotes and may contain comma

Answer 1

It's not the most elegant solution, but the quickest if you want to just quickly copy and paste code (avoiding having to import DLLs or other code libraries):

    private string[] splitQuoted(string line, char delimeter)
    {
        string[] array;
        List list = new List();
        do
        {
            if (line.StartsWith("\""))
            {
                line = line.Substring(1);
                int idx = line.IndexOf("\"");
                while (line.IndexOf("\"", idx) == line.IndexOf("\"\"", idx))
                {
                    idx = line.IndexOf("\"\"", idx) + 2;
                }
                idx = line.IndexOf("\"", idx);
                list.Add(line.Substring(0, idx));
                line = line.Substring(idx + 2);
            }
            else
            {
                list.Add(line.Substring(0, Math.Max(line.IndexOf(delimeter), 0)));
                line = line.Substring(line.IndexOf(delimeter) + 1);
            }
        }
        while (line.IndexOf(delimeter) != -1);
        list.Add(line);
        array = new string[list.Count];
        list.CopyTo(array);
        return array;
    }