I'm reading a CSV file for it's values, which is fairly simple, but I need to allow for commas to be passed through as data as well and therefore allow escaping. So for example I want:
to be read as 3 values and not 4. At first I thought I could accomplish this by using a negative look behind assertion, but then I realized that I had problems if my values contained legitimate back slashes (which must also now be escaped.
Please do not recommend a perl module for this task, as this is just as much about the technique as it is the task.