Split a string by spaces -- preserving quoted substrings -- in Python

Question

I have a string which is like this:

this is "a test" 

I'm trying to write something in Python to split it up by space while ignoring spaces within quotes. The result I'm looking for is:

['this','is','a test'] 

PS. I know you are going to ask "what happens if there are quotes within the quotes, well, in my application, that will never happen.

Answer 1

You want split, from the built-in shlex module.

>>> import shlex >>> shlex.split('this is "a test"') ['this', 'is', 'a test'] 

This should do exactly what you want.

Answer 2

Have a look at the shlex module, particularly shlex.split.

>>> import shlex >>> shlex.split('This is "a test"') ['This', 'is', 'a test']