Here's an answer from Mastering Regular Expressions:

sub parse_csv {
  my $text = shift; ## record containing comma-separated values
  my @new = ();
  push(@new, $+) while $text =~ m{
    ## the first part groups the phrase inside the quotes
    "([^\"\\]*(?:\\.[^\"\\]*)*)",?
      | ([^,]+),?
      | ,
    }gx;
    push(@new, undef) if substr($text, -1,1) eq ',';
    return @new; ## list of values that were comma-spearated
}
## Use like this: @goodlist = parse_csv($csvlist);

[download]

Ugly, to be sure, but the complexity level really kicks up a notch when you add the delimiters into the fields themselves. Also, the above snippet allows quotes inside the fields, as long as they are backslashed.

In reply to Re: How can I split a comma-delimited string when the fields can have commas in them? by turnstep
in thread How can I split a comma-delimited string when the fields can have commas in them? by dbetz

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.