CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
Bernie Noel
Bernie Noel

Reputation: 304

How can I parse a list of quoted arguments in Ruby?

I have this text:

text = '"Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"'

I want to convert it to an array:

array = [
  "Friend", 
  "One, Two, Three", 
  "something else"
]

How can I do it in Ruby? Simple split() won't work, since , may be inside some elements (like in this example). Maybe there are some libraries for that?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 233

Answers (3)

sawa
sawa

Reputation: 168269

You should use scan.

text.scan(/"([^"]*)"/).flatten
# => ["Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"]

or

text.scan(/"[^"]*"/).map{|s| s[1...-1]}
# => ["Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"]

Or, you can go with split.

text[1...-1].split(/", "/)
# => ["Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"]

Upvotes: 2

Babar Al-Amin
Babar Al-Amin

Reputation: 3984

String#scan with a regular expression:

text = '"Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"'
text.scan(/\"([,\ \w]+)\"/).flatten
#=> ["Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"]

Upvotes: 9

Kristján
Kristján

Reputation: 18843

Ruby's CSV parser won't like the space between elements in ", ", but if you clear that out, you can use it.

> s = '"Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"'
> t = s.gsub(/",\s*"/, '","')
> CSV.parse t
=> [["Friend", "One, Two, Three", "something else"]]

Upvotes: 0

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