Split string by commas ignoring any punctuation marks (including ',') in quotation marks

Question

How can I split string (from a textbox) by commas excluding those in double quotation marks (without getting rid of the quotation marks), along with other poss

Answer 1

Much like a CSV parser, instead of Regex, you can loop through each character, like so:

public List ItemStringToList(string inputString)
{  
    var itemList   = new List();
    var currentIem = "";
    var quotesOpen = false;

    for (int i = 0; i < inputString.Length; i++)
    {
        if (inputString[i] == '"')
        {
            quotesOpen = !quotesOpen;
            continue;
        }

        if (inputString[i] == ',' && !quotesOpen)
        {
            itemList.Add(currentIem);
            currentIem = "";
            continue;
        }

        if (currentIem == "" && inputString[i] == ' ') continue;
        currentIem += inputString[i];
    }

    if (currentIem != "") itemList.Add(currentIem);

    return itemList;
}

Example test usage:

var test1 = ItemStringToList("one, two, three");
var test2 = ItemStringToList("one, \"two\", three");
var test3 = ItemStringToList("one, \"two, three\"");
var test4 = ItemStringToList("one, \"two, three\", four, \"five six\", seven");
var test5 = ItemStringToList("one, \"two, three\", four, \"five six\", seven");
var test6 = ItemStringToList("one, \"two, three\", four, \"five six, seven\"");
var test7 = ItemStringToList("\"one, two, three\", four, \"five six, seven\"");

You could change it to use StringBuilder if you want faster character joining.