Javascript regex splitting words in a comma separated string

Question

I am trying to split a comma separated string using regex.

var a = 'hi,mr.007,bond,12:25PM'; //there are no white spaces between commas
var b = /(\S+?),(?=\S|$)/g;
b.exec(a); // does not catch the last item.

Any suggestion to catch all the items.

how about a.split(',')?

zzzzBov
– zzzzBov

2013-02-28 19:26:28 +00:00
Commented Feb 28, 2013 at 19:26 — zzzzBov
– zzzzBov, Commented Feb 28, 2013 at 19:26

Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-28 19:24:46Z

15

Use a negated character class:

/([^,]+)/g

will match groups of non-commas.

< a = 'hi,mr.007,bond,12:25PM'
> "hi,mr.007,bond,12:25PM"
< b=/([^,]+)/g
> /([^,]+)/g
< a.match(b)
> ["hi", "mr.007", "bond", "12:25PM"]

answered Feb 28, 2013 at 19:24

Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard

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3 Comments

Hayat Over a year ago

What if I have to match Juan Gastelum from Juan Gastelum, [email protected], 213-375-3149

Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Over a year ago

Try it and see.

Hayat Over a year ago

I mean I am getting the list but I just exactly want Juan Gastelum and not list.

Explosion Pills · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-28 19:20:33Z

7

Why not just use .split?

>'hi,mr.007,bond,12:25PM'.split(',')
["hi", "mr.007", "bond", "12:25PM"]

If you must use regex for some reason:

str.match(/(\S+?)(?:,|$)/g)
["hi,", "mr.007,", "bond,", "12:25PM"]

(note the inclusion of commas).

answered Feb 28, 2013 at 19:20

Explosion Pills

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Comments

Piran · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-06 15:46:48Z

If you are passing a CSV file, some of your values may have got double-quotes around them, so you may need something a little more complicated. For example:

Pattern splitCommas = java.util.regex.Pattern.compile("(?:^|,)((?:[^\",]|\"[^\"]*\")*)");

Matcher m = splitCommas.matcher("11,=\"12,345\",ABC,,JKL");

while (m.find()) {
    System.out.println( m.group(1));
}

or in Groovy:

java.util.regex.Pattern.compile('(?:^|,)((?:[^",]|"[^"]*")*)')
        .matcher("11,=\"12,345\",ABC,,JKL")
            .iterator()
                .collect { it[1] }

This code handles:

blank lines (with no values or commas on them)
empty columns, including the last column being empty
handles values wrapped in double-quotes, including commas inside the double-quotes
but does not handle two double-quotes used for escaping a double quote-itself

The pattern consists of:

(?:^|,) matches the start of the line or a comma after the last column, but does not add that to the group
((?:[^",]|"[^"]*")*) matches the value of the column, and consists of:
- a collecting group, which collects zero or more characters that are:
  - [^",] is a character that's not a comma or a quote
  - "[^"]*" is a double-quote followed by zero or more other characters ending in another double-quote
- those are or-ed together, using a non-collecting group: (?:[^",]|"[^"]*")
- use a * to repeat the above any number of times: (?:[^",]|"[^"]*")*
- and into a collecting group to give the columns value: ((?:[^",]|"[^"]*")*)

Doing escaping of double quotes is left as an exercise to the reader

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