How to slice this string into an array?

"word1",word2,"word3,word4"

result should be [ 'word1', 'word2', 'word3,word4' ]

That is if the word is surrounded by apostroph don't include it into the result.

The regex seems to be simple: (?: "([^"]*)" | ([^,]) )(?:,|$), but to my surprise both the matched and unamtched parenthesis contribute to the result, making it something like

[ 'word1', undef, undef, 'word2', 'word3,word4', undef ]

I have tried to make use of %+ which should use the leftmost defined result. That works ok, but the code seems to be too unreadable for what it does:

while (
  m/
    (?:                # non-capturing braces
      "(?<val>[^"]*)"  # Find either string delimited by '"'
      |                # or
      (?<val>[^,]*)    # string up to next ','
    )
    (?:,|$)            # After which there is either , or end of line
  /gx
) {
  push @input, $+{val};
}

[download]

I have tried to use @input = map { %+{val} } m/.../gx, but that fills the whole array with just the last match from whole string.

Is there a way to avoid the while + push loop and store the results in to array directly, just for the sake of making the code simpler and nicer?

Many thanks

__

Vlad

In reply to How to slice complicated string into an array by theNeuron

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.