Javascript split string on space or on quotes to array

Question

var str = 'single words "fixed string of words"'; var astr = str.split(" "); // need fix 

I would like the array to be like this:

var astr = ["single", "words", "fixed string of words"]; 

Answer 1

The accepted answer is not entirely correct. It separates on non-space characters like . and - and leaves the quotes in the results. The better way to do this so that it excludes the quotes is with capturing groups, like such:

//The parenthesis in the regex creates a captured group within the quotes var myRegexp = /[^\s"]+|"([^"]*)"/gi; var myString = 'single words "fixed string of words"'; var myArray = [];  do {     //Each call to exec returns the next regex match as an array     var match = myRegexp.exec(myString);     if (match != null)     {         //Index 1 in the array is the captured group if it exists         //Index 0 is the matched text, which we use if no captured group exists         myArray.push(match[1] ? match[1] : match[0]);     } } while (match != null); 

myArray will now contain exactly what the OP asked for:

single,words,fixed string of words