Hello iamnewbie, and welcome to the Monastery!

It looks as though your data is in CSV (comma separated values) format, in which case the best approach is to use a dedicated CSV module. For example:

#! perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Text::CSV_XS;

my $testb = "hello,'world, yo',matt";
my $csv   =  Text::CSV_XS->new({ keep_meta_info => 1, quote_char => "'
+" });
my @records;

if ($csv->parse($testb))
{
    my @fields = $csv->fields;

    for my $col (0 .. $#fields)
    {
        if ($csv->is_quoted($col))
        {
            push @records, $csv->{quote_char} . $fields[$col] .
                           $csv->{quote_char};
        }
        else
        {
            push @records, $fields[$col];
        }
    }
}
else
{
    warn "parse() failed on argument: ", $csv->error_input, "\n";
    $csv->error_diag;
}

print "$_\n\n" for @records;

[download]

Output:

16:47 >perl 1156_SoPW.pl
hello

'world, yo'

matt


16:47 >

[download]

(Code adapted from the documentation for Text::CSV_XS.)

Hope that helps,

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

In reply to Re: How to use split() in perl to ignore white space and ',' by Athanasius
in thread How to use split() in perl to ignore white space and ',' by iamnewbie

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