This CSV (Comma Separated Value) format is not as easy as it seems. I did some testing with Excel and also found this article on wikipedia: CSV format.

To "escape" a "(double quote) in the CSV format you put another " (double quote) in front of it (or behind it) - who is to say which one is which - but two means one.

I am not a regex guru, but there are folks here who are. The below shows what needs to be done in this particular case. More general solutions are possible. 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

=doc
stuff,"more","foo (1994 "bar" only)",1234,1988,3.0,""
should be:
stuff,"more","foo (1994 ""bar"" only)",1234,1988,3.0,""
or could also be:
stuff,more,foo (1994 "bar" only),1234,1988,3.0,""
=cut

my $x = 'stuff,"more","foo (1994 "bar" only)",1234,1988,3.0,""';

$x =~ s/ "/ ""/g;
$x =~ s/" /"" /g;

print $x;
# prints: 
# stuff,"more","foo (1994 ""bar"" only)",1234,1988,3.0,""

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In reply to Re: problems parsing CSV by Marshall
in thread problems parsing CSV by helenwoodson

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