Split string with quotes in it

[pmwhelan]

Hi
I want to split a string into an array and treat quoted phrases as words.

I was splitting on a space which worked fine.

char[] delimiterChars = {' '};
string[] arrValues = searchText.Split(delimiterChars);

This would split a sentence ...
this is a test
into an array of size 4.

But I want to split and preserve the data in double qoutes.
i.e. it treats anything inside two quotes as a word

this is a "really really long" test

would create an array of size five i.e.

this
is
a
really really long
test

Any ideas?
Thanks!
P

[SammyB]

You'll need to use RegularExpressions, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...gex.split.aspx. If you google regex split excel, you'll find code like:

string input = "john,doe,is,\"123 somewhere, suite 4\"";
string pattern = ",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))";
string[] items = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Split(input, pattern);

It's just ugly enough to work, but it splits on commas instead of spaces. I thought that I had a sample that splits on spaces or commas, but I cannot find it. If you google some more, you may find it; otherwise, you'll need a regex expert, not me.

[SammyB]

You'll need to use RegularExpressions, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...gex.split.aspx. If you google regex split excel, you'll find code like:

string input = "john,doe,is,\"123 somewhere, suite 4\"";
string pattern = ",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))";
string[] items = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Split(input, pattern);

It's just ugly enough to work, but it splits on commas instead of spaces. I thought that I had a sample that splits on spaces or commas, but I cannot find it. If you google some more, you may find it; otherwise, you'll need a regex expert, not me.

Found my code, it's the same as what I posted, so it does not split on spaces. Sorry.

You also might want to consider what you want to to do with "a""b"
Excel parses this to a single cell containing a"b