Regex match all the words outside quotation marks?

Question

Is it possible to match text outside quotation marks by using standard regex parser? I have seen this answer, but it is done by using PCRE:

Can regex match all the words outside quotation marks?

This is not a pure solution because of using PERL. I know that it also can be solved by using programming language, but the idea is to use pure regex parser.

I have made something like this, but this is not working correctly

[^'"]*(?=(?:(['"])+(.*?\1))|([^'"]*$))

Thank you in advance.

UPD1:The idea is to match any kind of text outside quotation marks, the solution must not depend on the input.

I don't believe there's a single regex that would work for *all* the languages. There will be at least one platform that doesn't support a particular feature. — Amal Murali, Oct 28 '14 at 13:38
__Warning:__ don't use a regex to write a parser for a programming language unless you know _exactly_ what you are doing. Common pitfalls: (1) `"` inside a code comment mistaken for the start of a string literal. (2) `/*` or `//` inside a string literal mistaken for the start of a code comment. (3) `\"` inside a string literal mistaken for the end of the string literal. (4) Failure to recognize tokens inside the placeholders of an [interpolated string](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interpolation). — Ruud Helderman, Aug 23 '22 at 14:22

vks · Answer 1 · 2014-10-28T14:21:10.100

10

<yourtext>(?=(?:[^"]*"[^"]*")*[^"]*$)

Yes you can do it in using positive lookahead.But this assumes you have balanced " and there is no stray " lying somewhere.See demo.

http://regex101.com/r/sU3fA2/29

edited Oct 28 '14 at 14:21

answered Oct 28 '14 at 13:36

vks

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Can you briefly explain this solution? What if I want to escape `\"` instead of `"`? Thanks. – Sam Kah Chiin Jul 17 '18 at 09:24
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@SamKahChiin it says after `text` there can be groups of `"` <>`"` ahead of it and then there should be no single `"` ahead of those groups till end.So after the text after we have captured all groups of `"`<>`"` , if there is a single `"` left, its a fail – vks Jul 17 '18 at 09:27
Why I can't capture `{"` with this ? – Alejandro Cotilla Aug 22 '19 at 23:55
@AlejandroCotilla what is the expected output – vks Aug 23 '19 at 10:13
@vks not really, I wanted to find every match of `{"` outside of double quotes, specifically for dealing with json. – Alejandro Cotilla Aug 23 '19 at 12:11

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 17 '18 at 06:56

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I came up with this solution:

(?:[^"](?=(?:[^"]*?(?:["][^"]*?["][^"]*?)+$)|(?:[^"]*?$)))*|(^[^"]*["][^"]*$)

http://regex101.com/r/pI8xA4/2

it will not work very well if we have an odd number of quotes - In this case, it will skip the first quote. But it is the best solution for me for now.

edited Sep 17 '18 at 06:56

wp78de

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answered Oct 29 '14 at 11:54

dzharvis

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 28 '14 at 14:26

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This pattern will capture words outside double quotes

"[^"]+"|(\S+)

Demo

or this pattern to capture sentences outside double quotes, you would have to trim extra spaces

"[^"]+"|([^"]+)

Demo

answered Oct 28 '14 at 14:26

alpha bravo

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Regex match all the words outside quotation marks?

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