java split strings inside quotes

Question

Is there a way using Java String.split(regexp) to split on strings inside of quotes, and not get the quotes? The strings I have to deal with are like the following. I don't have control of the format and the number of strings are variable:

"strA" : "strB" : "strC" : "strD",
"strE" : "strF" : "strG",

Note: The spaces are included, and each line is handled separately. So what I would like to get is an array with all strings.

I could use replaceAll to strip the quotes, spaces and commas, then split on the colon:

line = line.replaceAll(/(\"|,\\s+)/,"");
usrArray = line.split(":");

But I'd like to do this with one regexp.

Looks like a JSON. You might consider just parsing the JSON string. — Reaz Masud
– Reaz Masud, Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 21:03
show us more of what you are parsing. it seems like the data you are trying to parse is JSON and there exist parsers for that type of format already — RAZ_Muh_Taz
– RAZ_Muh_Taz, Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 21:17
This is not a JSON, it's actually a series of strings in quotes separated by colons, I just included two with user/role names for simplicity. I've updated the post to be more specific. — Magneton
– Magneton, Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 21:17
so whats wrong with line.split(":") and then for each piece in the array you trim().replaceAll(""", ""); ?? you could line.split(""\\s+:\\s+"") but it wouldn't fully clean up the pieces for the first and last item in the array returned — RAZ_Muh_Taz
– RAZ_Muh_Taz, Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 21:20
Nothing wrong with that or the way I did it with replace, and split on the colon. I wanted to do it one regular expression so that it is one operation as opposed to two if possible. — Magneton
– Magneton, Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 21:22

Jade · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-30 22:14:35Z

1

This should do the trick.

usrArray = line.split("(\" : \")|(\",?)");

This looks first for " : ". If it doesnt find that it will look for the edge cases, " and ",. If you need it to also search for newlines, use this regex.

usrArray = line.split("(\" : \")|(\",?\n?)");

answered Mar 30, 2018 at 22:14

Jade

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1 Comment

Magneton Over a year ago

That's really close! I'm still getting an empty string as the first element in the returned array, but I can work around that.

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