split string by spaces properly accounting for quotes and backslashes (ruby)

Question

I want to split a string (insecure foreign line, like exim_mainlog line) by spaces, but not by spaces that are inside of double quotes, and ignore if the quote is escaped by a backslash like \", and ignore the backslash if it is just escaped like \\. Without slow parsing the string manually with FSM.

Example line:

U=mailnull T="test \"quote\" and wild blackslash\\" P=esmtps

Should be split into:

["U=mailnull", "T=\"test \\\"quote\\\" and wild blackslash\\\"", "P=esmtps"]

(Btw, I think ruby should had method for such split.., sigh).

Answer 1

I think I found simple enough solution: input.scan(/(?:"(?:\\.|[^"])*"|[^" ])+/)