How to split complex string in VB.Net

Question

I have a string of parameters from a Javascript function call

ITQPopup('100',255,'2932 NTYwNDUwMTA0MDYzMDM);3094 V0FZ','-1909432577',0,0)

As you can see, this is very poorly coded, there are 6 parameters being passed

'100'
255
'2932 NTYwNDUwMTA0MDYzMDM);3094 V0FZ'
'-1909432577'
0 
0

I would split the string by "," (comma) but I'm afraid there could be commas in the 3rd parameter. How would one go about splitting this string?

Answer 1

You can accomplish this easily with RegEx. For instance:

Dim input As String = "ITQPopup('100',255,'2932 NTYwNDUwMTA0MDYzMDM);3094 V0FZ','-1909432577',0,0)"
Dim pattern As String = "ITQPopup\('(.*?)',(.*?),'(.*?)','(.*?)',(.*?),(.*?)\)"
Dim m As Match = Regex.Match(input, pattern)
If m.Success Then
    Dim param1 As String = m.Groups(1).Value
    Dim param2 As String = m.Groups(2).Value
    Dim param3 As String = m.Groups(3).Value
    Dim param4 As String = m.Groups(4).Value
    Dim param5 As String = m.Groups(5).Value
    Dim param6 As String = m.Groups(6).Value
End If

You could further improve the pattern, if necessary, to allow white-space between parameters, etc. But that's the simplest working example.

Answer 2

Strip the content of the brackets, wrap in the square brackets and use JSON library to parse it as array.