How can I parse CSV data with internal commas in data using Perl?

Question

The data I need to parse looks like:

[fild1, filed2, .... filedn] , [filed1, filed2, .... filedn] .....

I call it a special form of CSV data because there are two kinds of comma:

those commas outside the [] pair are served as the separator between different records.
those commas inside the [] pair are served as the separator between different fields.

So in this case using split(',' , $data) will not serve my needs which is to parse the data and get every record in the data.

@carillonator, It's just standard Python vs Perl flame-baiting. Ignore it or flag it. Sadly, it's fairly typical on SO. — daotoad
– daotoad, Commented Dec 21, 2009 at 17:39

catwalk · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-21 16:37:31Z

5

This should do the job:

my @out = map{[split/,/]} $data =~ /\[([^\]]+)\]/g;

example:

use Data::Dumper;
$data='[1,2,3],[4,5],[6]';
@a=map{[split/,/]} $data =~ /\[([^\]]+)\]/g;
print Dumper @a;

output:

$VAR1 = [
          '1',
          '2',
          '3'
        ];
$VAR2 = [
          '4',
          '5'
        ];
$VAR3 = [
          '6'
        ];

answered Dec 21, 2009 at 16:37

catwalk

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Comments

Dana · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-21 16:41:46Z

2

How about: my @parts = split(/\]/, $data);, and then you can iterate over @parts, remove the heading [ and split once more by ","

You can also make the initial split like so: my @parts = split(/\] , /, $data); and that will save you some more cleanup later. Just be sure to only use this method if your data's whitespaces are consistent.

edited Dec 21, 2009 at 16:41

answered Dec 21, 2009 at 16:33

Dana

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1 Comment

Randal Schwartz Over a year ago

That's a bad regex for the split, since split's first argument is always interpreted as a regex.

el.pescado - нет войне · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-21 16:41:18Z

1

my @a = split /\]\s*,\s*\[/, $data;

and get rid of first '[' and last ']'.

answered Dec 21, 2009 at 16:41

el.pescado - нет войне

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Comments

Brad Gilbert · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-21 19:19:36Z

0

Here is a quick example that assumes that the value in $data is valid.

my @data = map { [ split ',', $_ ] } $data =~ / \[ ([^\[\]]*) \] ,? /xg;

answered Dec 21, 2009 at 19:19

Brad Gilbert

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Comments

ghostdog74 · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-23 02:30:34Z

0

you can also try out Text::CSV or Text::CSV_XS. go to CPAN to download.

answered Dec 23, 2009 at 2:30

ghostdog74

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