Question

I am looking for a good way to convert string like:

"[apples, oranges, [strawberries, peas, grapes]]"

into an array which will look like:

array = [apples, oranges, [strawberries, peas, grapes]].

therefore array[0] = ["apples"], array[1] = ["oranges"], and array[2] = ["strawberries", "peas", "grapes"]

So, whenever in my string I have another inner square brackets, the content between brackets will be a subarray of my base array.

Answer 1

eval s.gsub /\w+/, '"\&"'

or, for an alternative result that might be useful…

eval s.gsub /\w+/, ':\&'

Now, these are vulnerable to code injection exploits if you are not in full control of the input, so you could install a JSON gem and do something like this:

require 'json'

JSON.parse s.gsub /\w+/, '"\&"'