Split by comma and how to exclude comma from quotes in split … Python

Question

python 2.7 code

cStr = \'\"aaaa\",\"bbbb\",\"ccc,ffffd\"\' 

newStr = cStr.split(\',\')

print newStr 

# result : [\'\"aaaa\"\',\'\"bbbb\"\',\'\"ccc\',\'ffffd\         


        

Answer 1

It will be better to use regex in this case. re.findall('".*?"', cStr) returns exactly what you need

asterisk is greedy wildcard, if you used '".*"', it would return maximal match, i.e. everything in between the very first and the very last double quote. The question mark makes it non greedy, so '".*?"' returns the smallest possible match.

Answer 2

You need a parser. You can build your own, or you may be able to press one of the library ones into service. In this case, json could be (ab)used.

import json

cStr = '"aaaa","bbbb","ccc,ffffd"' 
jstr = '[' + cStr + ']'
result = json.loads( jstr)             # ['aaaa', 'bbbb', 'ccc,ffffd']
result = [ '"'+r+'"' for r in result ] # ['"aaaa"', '"bbbb"', '"ccc,ffffd"']