Question

I need to write a split function in JavaScript that splits a string into an array, on a comma…but the comma must not be enclosed in quotation marks (' and ").

Here are three examples and how the result (an array) should be:

"peanut, butter, jelly"
  -> ["peanut", "butter", "jelly"]

"peanut, 'butter, bread', 'jelly'"
  -> ["peanut", "butter, bread", "jelly"]

'peanut, "butter, bread", "jelly"'
  -> ["peanut", 'butter, bread', "jelly"]

The reason I cannot use JavaScript’s split method is because it also splits when the delimiter is enclosed in quotation marks.

How can I accomplish this, maybe with a regular expression ?

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As regards the context, I will be using this to split the arguments passed from the third element of the third argument passed to the function you create when extending the jQuery’s $.expr[':']. Normally, the name given to this parameter is called meta, which is an array that contains certain info about the filter.

Anyways, the third element of this array is a string which contains the parameters that are passed with the filter; and since the parameters in a string format, I need to be able to split them correctly for parsing.

Answer 1

What you are asking for is essentially a Javascript CSV parser. Do a Google search on “Javascript CSV Parser” and you’ll get lots of hits, many with complete scripts. See also Javascript code to parse CSV data