Split a string with custom delimiter, respect and preserve quotes (single or double)

Question

I have a string which is like this:

>>> s = \'1,\",2, \",,4,,,\\\',7, \\\',8,,10,\'
>>> s
\'1,\",2, \",,4,,,\\\',7, \\\',8,,10,\'

Answer 1

It looks like you are reinventing python module csv. Batteries included.

In [1]: import csv
In [2]: s = '1,",2, ",,4,,,\',7, \',8,,10,'
In [3]: next(csv.reader([s]))
Out[3]: ['1', ',2, ', '', '4', '', '', "'", '7', " '", '8', '', '10', '']

I think, regexp's often are not good solution. It can be surprisingly slow in unexpected moments. In csv module can adjust dialect and it's easy to process any numner of strings/file.

I've failed to adjust csv to two variants of quotechar at the same time, but do you really need it?

In [4]: next(csv.reader([s], quotechar="'"))
Out[4]: ['1', '"', '2', ' "', '', '4', '', '', ',7, ', '8', '', '10', '']

or

In [5]: s = '1,",2, ",,4,,,",7, ",8,,10,'
In [6]: next(csv.reader([s]))
Out[6]: ['1', ',2, ', '', '4', '', '', ',7, ', '8', '', '10', '']