C# Regex Split - commas outside quotes

Question

I got quite a lot of strings (segments of SQL code, actually) with the following format:

('ABCDEFG', 123542, 'XYZ 99,9') 

and i need to split this string, using C#, in order to get:

• 'ABCDEFG'
• 123542
• 'XYZ 99,9'

I was originally using a simple Split(','), but since that comma inside the last parameter is causing havoc in the output i need to use Regex to get it. The problem is that i'm still quite noobish in regular expressions and i can't seem to crack the pattern mainly because inside that string both numerical and alpha-numerical parameters may exist at any time...

What could i use to split that string according to every comma outside the quotes? Cheers

Answer 1

You could split on all commas, that do have an even number of quotes following them , using the following Regex to find them:

",(?=(?:[^']*'[^']*')*[^']*$)" 

You'd use it like

var result = Regex.Split(samplestring, ",(?=(?:[^']*'[^']*')*[^']*$)"); 

Answer 2

//this regular expression splits string on the separator character NOT inside double quotes.  //separatorChar can be any character like comma or semicolon etc.  //it also allows single quotes inside the string value: e.g. "Mike's Kitchen","Jane's Room" Regex regx = new Regex(separatorChar + "(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))");  string[] line = regx.Split(string to split);