I'm sure this was discussed before, searching the archives should be the best strategy.

Some of the answers I gave in the following might help (and illustrate the complexity) --> In place replace, ignoring between quotes

update

especially this post: Re^2: In place replace, ignoring between quotes (escapes)

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

In reply to Re^2: split on comma unless within quotes... (updated) by LanX
in thread split on comma unless within quotes... by bcarroll

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