regex split with exceptions

Question

This is an extension to this SO question. This question considers two different enclosing characters, in contrast to the original question.

I would like to split by (white)spaces of any number but ignore everything between <> AND "". So this string:

string Line = "1  2  <1  2> \"hello world\"   3";

Should result in this:

1, 2, <1 2>, \"hello world\", 3

Answer 1

This is what I came up with so far:

public static string[] GetSplitStrings(string input)
{
    IList<string> splitStrings = new List<string>();
    var counter = 0;

    var sb = new StringBuilder();
    var inLessGreater = false; // sometimes <> can contain "
    foreach (var character in input)
    {
    if (character.Equals('<'))
    {
        inLessGreater = true;
        counter++;
    }

    if (character.Equals('>'))
    {
        inLessGreater = false;
        counter++;
    }

    if (character.Equals('"') && !inLessGreater)
    {
        counter++;
    }

    if ((character.Equals(' ') && counter == 0) || (counter == 2))
    {
        if (sb.ToString().Equals("") == false)
        {
        if (character.Equals('"') || character.Equals('>'))
        {
            sb.Append(character);
        }
        splitStrings.Add(sb.ToString());
        }
        sb.Clear();
        counter = 0;
    }
    else
    {
        sb.Append(character);
    }
    }

    return splitStrings.ToArray();
}

Would prefer a neat regex solution.

Answer 2

Instead of Split, I'll use Matches

string Line = "1  2  <1  2> \"hello world\"   3";
var parts = Regex.Matches(Line, @"[<\""]{1}[\w \d]+?[>\""]{1}|[\w\d]+")
                 .Cast<Match>()
                 .Select(m=>m.Value)
                 .ToArray();

PS: This would also match "abc def>. But I ignored it to make the regex shorter