Allow string.split to take string patterns

Feature Requests Engine Features
#1

As a Roblox developer, it is difficult to make string.split work for string patterns. The only solution right now is to make a wrapper that does this for you but this behaviour should be built in.

My use case for this would be parsing user input messages, like for admin commands. I split the command and arguments for that command via whitespace, with string.split(message, " "). But the issue is that a player could input an arbitrary amount of spaces, thus messing up the result.

If this issue is addressed, it would improve my development experience because I wouldn’t have to worry about small things like that.

apparently they don’t want us specifying a solution but i had an idea nonetheless

string.split(string s, string delimiter = ",", bool plain = true)

kind of like how string.find works with the last argument

17 Likes
Help with string patterns
#2

This probably was’t added because it would be seldom used.

This seems reasonably niche, but it does seem like a neat addition.

If you need this, it doesn’t seem too hard to implement.

local function split(str,by,starting,plain)
	starting = starting or 1
	if starting < 0 then
		starting = #str+starting+1
	end
	if by == "" then
		local tbl = table.create(#str-starting+1,nil)
		for i=starting,#str do
			tbl[i] = string.sub(str,i,i)
		end
		return tbl
	end
	local tbl = {nil,nil,nil,nil}
	local matchStart,matchEnd = string.find(str,by,starting,plain)
	local lstr = #str+2
	while matchStart and starting < lstr do
		table.insert(tbl,string.sub(str,starting,matchStart-1))
		starting = math.max(matchStart,matchEnd)+1
		matchStart,matchEnd = string.find(str,by,starting,plain)
	end
	table.insert(tbl,string.sub(str,starting,-1))
	return tbl
end
3 Likes
#3

This is exactly why this should be an argument. It’s too much work. As for the use case, that was merely an example. There are far more use cases.

3 Likes
#4

This definitely should be added, it would save developers a lot of time and has plenty of use cases. Please consider doing this sometime as it is a small feature that would go a long way.

10 Likes