javascript regular expression match

Question

I need to split a string like the one below, based on space as the delimiter. But any space within a quote should be preserved. There are two cases which needs to work

Case 1

research library "not available" author:"Bernard Shaw"

to

research 
library 
"not available" 
author:"Bernard Shaw"

Case 2

research library "not available" author:Bernard

to

research 
library 
"not available" 
author:Bernard

I am trying to do this with Javascript and regular expression.

var splitArray = query_string.match(/([^\s]*\"[^\"]+\")|\w+/g);

Case 1 works as required but Case 2 produces the result as below

research 
library 
"not available" 
author
Bernard

I need both the cases to work with one Regex. Any ideas appreciated.

Tim Pietzcker · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-07 14:36:24Z

1

[^"\s]+(?:"[^"]+")?|"[^"]+"

Explanation:

[^"\s]+       # One or more non-space/non-quote characters
(?:"[^"]+")?  # optionally followed by a quoted string
|             # or
"[^"]+"       # just a quoted string.

Assuming that there are no escaped quotes within quoted strings.

answered Feb 7, 2011 at 14:36

Tim Pietzcker

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1 Comment

itsbalur Over a year ago

Thanks Tim. It works great. Looks to me the most comprehensive of all the answers.

bw_üezi · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-07 14:43:32Z

1

([^\s]*\"[^\"]+\")|\w+:?

I've tested this regex here: rubular

update: you may want to include some more punctuation marks like ; , . ? !
e.g. research library! "not available" author:"Bernard Shaw" test1, test2; test2!

([^\s]*\"[^\"]+\")|\w+[:;\.,\?!]?

edited Feb 7, 2011 at 14:43

answered Feb 7, 2011 at 14:31

bw_üezi

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1 Comment

itsbalur Over a year ago

thanks. it gives "author:" and "Bernard" separately when I try to put it in use. In Rubular, seems to work well though.

morja · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-07 14:38:41Z

0

This works, at least for your two cases:

((?:[^\s]*\"[^\"]+\")|[\w:]+)

see here

answered Feb 7, 2011 at 14:38

morja

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