Conditional splitting in Javascript

Question

I need to split a string in javascript (no jquery). This is basically received fron csv. so, i have a string,

string = '"abc, xyz, mno","lmn, pqr, bcd, jkl"';

Note: Number of commas in quoted parts is not fixed for example, "abc, xyz, mno" can also be "abc, xyz, mno, klm, ..." or "lmn, pqr, bcd, jkl" could have been just "lmn"; i.e no comma at all.

I want to split it as

str1 = 'abc, xyz, mno';
str2 = 'lmn, pqr, bcd, jkl';

I can't do this with string.split(",");, due to undefined number of commas.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Answer 1

You can specify multiple characters in the String#split method :

str.split('","')

Demo:

let str = '"abc, xyz, mno","lmn, pqr, bcd, jkl"';

let result = str.split('","')
console.log(result);

---

If you want to get rid of the quotes, juste add a

.map(s => s.replace('"',''))

Demo:

let str = '"abc, xyz, mno","lmn, pqr, bcd, jkl"';

let result = str.split('","').map(s => s.replace('"',''));
console.log(result);

Answer 2

This is probably best done with a regular expression. But, since they aren't my strongest area, here's how it could be done with a combination of String.split(), Array.map(), and String.replace():

let input = '"abc, xyz, mno","lmn, pqr, bcd, jkl"';

// Split where "," is found
// Create a new array that is a copy of the original
// but with \" removed from the elements
let output = input.split('","').map(s => s.replace('\"',''));

console.log(output);