perl splitting function exception conditions

Question

I have a requirement for splitting in perl. Please have a look in the below example:

"john","David2,mick",25,"12-12-2009","male"

I have to split this record on each comma (,) that isn't inside quotes.

Expected output is:

john 
david2mick 
25 
12-12-2009
male

Could you please help me with this.

Don't use regexes, use a CSV parser like [Text::CSV](https://metacpan.org/module/Text::CSV). This handles embedded commas correctly. — amon, Sep 15 '13 at 17:59
Your example shows removing quote pairs, removing commas which are inside quote pairs, and then splitting on commas. But that's not exactly what you asked. Please clarify. — dannysauer, Sep 15 '13 at 18:02
This is an epic fail. Your sample code and expected output do not match on your most important aspect. — TLP, Sep 15 '13 at 18:02
Hi Rohit, Iam not able to install these modules in unix box since I dont have privilages. — David, Sep 15 '13 at 18:04
This is a CSV file, but I dont have permissions to execute native perl modules... So iam trying with out CSV module — David, Sep 15 '13 at 18:35
possible duplicate of [How do I efficiently parse a CSV file in Perl?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3065095/how-do-i-efficiently-parse-a-csv-file-in-perl) — JB., Sep 15 '13 at 20:50
If you wanted to use a regular expression you could do: ("[^"]*"|[^,]*) — smerlung, Sep 16 '13 at 11:14

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 15 '13 at 18:08

6

You can use Text::ParseWords, a core module in Perl 5. It is a light weight option to Text::CSV, assuming this is not proper csv data you have here.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use Text::ParseWords;

my $str = qq("john","David2,mick",25,"12-12-2009","male");
my @list = quotewords(',', 0, $str);

print Dumper \@list;

Output:

$VAR1 = [
          'john',
          'David2,mick',
          '25',
          '12-12-2009',
          'male'
        ];

answered Sep 15 '13 at 18:08

TLP

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After the split, it's then possible to iterate through the list to remove the commas: `s/,//g for @list;` – Platinum Azure Sep 15 '13 at 18:21
@PlatinumAzure: `tr/,//d for @list` – Borodin Sep 15 '13 at 18:43
Friends, Thanks for all the help. I am able to achive my Output. – David Sep 17 '13 at 18:14
@David If you feel happy with the answers, you can accept one of them by clicking the checkmark. – TLP Sep 17 '13 at 19:35

SzG · Answer 2 · 2013-09-15T18:59:59.053

2

This is a CSV file. It's best to use the Text::CSV module

use Text::CSV;
my $line = '"john","David2,mick",25,"12-12-2009","male"';
my $csv = Text::CSV->new();
$csv->parse($line);
my @columns = $csv->fields();

edited Sep 15 '13 at 18:59

answered Sep 15 '13 at 18:04

SzG

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perl splitting function exception conditions

2 Answers2