I'm trying to parse CSV files (comma separated file).  So I'm doing a split.  However, sometimes the strings may contain commas themselves.  This is often done by surrounding the string in quotes.

Code:

 for (int i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
	String[] pieces = split(lines[i], ',');
}
 

This, is, a, "Test, yes, a test", thanks

I want to produce:
pieces[0] = this
pieces[1] = is
pieces[2] = a
pieces[3] = "Test, yes, a test"
pieces[4] = thanks

One simple approach that might just work is to split on " first.  Now you should have an array where each odd element (i.e. 1,3,5) would have been contained within inverted commas.

You can then create a new array to contain all elements:

Iterate through the array produced by splitting on inverted commas - for the contents of even indices (0,2,4...) split on commas and add the resulting array to the new array.  For odd indices you'll simply have to replace the "inverted" commas as these will have been removed during the first split operation, and add to the new array.

This is untested but my gut feeling is that this should work and avoid having to write complex parsing routines
(You might want to test what happens if the first character is an inverted comma.)

Another approach might be to use indexOf to find when the next inverted comma is.  Split on commas to that point.  Do indexOf again: this is a sentence containing commas - strip it out and add it to your array.  Do indexOf, split to that point etc...

Good point.  Must admit I don't enjoy parsing text for just that reason:  far too many surprises - i.e. what you think should work more often than not doesn't...  That'll teach me for thinking aloud

In this case if I had control over the source file I might have simply tried to avoid the problem altogether by using something other than commas to separate the contents...

Thanks!!! I think that will get me started.

This was one of the reasons I choose Processing.. the community rocks!