Question

filter -n ""function(file) { return file.owner == "john"; }""

should be parsed into the following array:

[ 'filter',
  '-n',
  'function(file) { return file.owner == "john"; }' ]

Answer 1

I’m not entirely sure how you want to handle the double quotes. Do you want to also be able to handle strings with only a single double quote on each end, or are the quotes always doubled?

var string = 'filter -n ""function(file) { return file.owner == "john"; }""';
var regex  = /([^"\s]+)|""(.*?)""/g;
var match;
var result = [];

while (match = regex.exec(string)) {
    result.push(match[1] || match[2]);
}

alert(result);

Result:

filter,-n,function(file) { return file.owner == "john"; }