Need help with javascript regular expression

[rporter]

I have a javascript utility and need so help with regular expressions..

Basically I have lines of data that consists of name=value pairs delimited with commas.

example
match=type abc{0,4}D,search=(.*?) (.*?) (.*),replace=$2 $1 $3

The problem I have is sometimes as in the example a value may have a comma in it. In these cases in the value will be with a quoting mechinism,
That include "value", 'value', (value), [value], and {value}.

I need a way to replace the commas inside the quote mechinism with something else so the split of the name value pairs works properly.

After the split I need to restore the commans in the values that had them.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[mrhoo]

You can use a regular expression.exec(string) to loop through the lines and match single and double quotes and their contents. Replace any quote enclosed commas with a \t (tab) or other character you won't use in a value,
and replace the tabs after the split.

You have to watch out for escaped quotes and apostrophes, and be sure to match single or double quotes only with themselves.

It would be best to replace the commas on the input side, or use another delimeter.