How to split comma-separated key-value pairs with quoted commas

Question

I know there are a lot of other posts about parsing comma-separated values, but I couldn\'t find one that splits key-value pairs and handles quoted commas.

I have st

Answer 1

It's possible to do with a regular expression. In this case, it might actually be the best option, too. I think this will work with most input, even escaped quotes such as this one: phrase='I\'m cool'

With the VERBOSE flag, it's possible to make complicated regular expressions quite readable.

import re
text = '''age=12,name=bob,hobbies="games,reading",phrase="I'm cool!"'''
regex = re.compile(
    r'''
        (?P\w+)=      # Key consists of only alphanumerics
        (?P["']?)   # Optional quote character.
        (?P.*?)     # Value is a non greedy match
        (?P=quote)         # Closing quote equals the first.
        ($|,)              # Entry ends with comma or end of string
    ''',
    re.VERBOSE
    )

d = {match.group('key'): match.group('value') for match in regex.finditer(text)}

print(d)  # {'name': 'bob', 'phrase': "I'm cool!", 'age': '12', 'hobbies': 'games,reading'}