It seems to me that you're trying to parse a comma-delimited entries. Each entry may or may not be quoted. If quoted, the entry may contain commas. Sounds like a good job for Text::xSV or similar.

Keep in mind that most languages use escape routines to indicate embedded delimiters. Perl, for example, would require that the string in question be something like "a like <A HREF=\"foo\"> b</A>" in order to avoid bareword errors on foo.

In reply to Re: Regex Conundrum by Nkuvu
in thread Regex Conundrum by jblakey

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