Split by spaces but not when phrase is inside quotes...

[afrinspray]

I'm writing a function that parses a nested list string that might look
like this:
( "HELLO WORLD!" 1231231 awesome ( 1 2 ) )

I wrote the logic already and it starts by splitting the string by the
space character (or tab or newline).
ex... $tklist = preg_split("/\s|\n|\t/", $str);

This works except in the string case, where "HELLO WORLD!" should not
be two parts. How do I split by spaces but keep phrases inside quotes
in tact? Is there an easy way to do this?

Thanks,
Mike

[Tony]

<af********@gma il.com> wrote in message
news:11******** *************@g 43g2000cwa.goog legroups.com...

I'm writing a function that parses a nested list string that might look
like this:
( "HELLO WORLD!" 1231231 awesome ( 1 2 ) )

I wrote the logic already and it starts by splitting the string by the
space character (or tab or newline).
ex... $tklist = preg_split("/\s|\n|\t/", $str);

This works except in the string case, where "HELLO WORLD!" should not
be two parts. How do I split by spaces but keep phrases inside quotes
in tact? Is there an easy way to do this?

Remove the substrings surrounded by quotes first. Then don't parse the
phrases that were enclosed - only split the rest of the string.

[afrinspray]

Brilliant. Thanks.

Mike