Hello.
I’ve been stuck on this problem for a couple hours.
How would I split a string by spaces but ignore spaces within quotes?
For example:
Hello1 “Hello2 Hello3” Hello4 "Hello 5 "
>>>
{
“Hello1”,
“Hello2 Hello3”,
“Hello4”,
"Hello 5 "
}
I’ve tried using for loops and bools to keep track of when inside quotes but I just can’t get it working nicely.
Any suggestions or examples would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Instead of using string.split, write your own algorithm to process chars 1 by 1
Include a boolean called inside_quote that is flipped when the presence of a quote is found
Split words by space, unless inside_quote is true, make sure to also error if a string never gets closed (since otherwise the word is never written)
You can also detect for \ chars if you want to implement escapes for the quote mark
You could try some algorithm with string.find() and string.sub().
You can also check the documentation here string documentation
You want to ignore spaces between “Hello” and “n” (n for number) ?
If so then there’s a few ways but nothing that’s super simple
Otherwise you can just remove all spaces entirely.
string.gsub(yourstring, "%s", "") -- gsub is a find/replace function for strings.
That’s pretty much what I tried initially but I have no clue what I’m doing wrong
local function GetParameters(Text)
local Parameters = {}
local WithinQuote = false
local CurrentParameter = ""
for Index,Character in pairs(string.split(Text, "")) do
if Character == "\"" then
WithinQuote = not WithinQuote
end
if WithinQuote then
CurrentParameter = CurrentParameter .. Character
else
if Character == " " then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
CurrentParameter = ""
end
end
end
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
end
print(Parameters)
end
Try this
local InQuotes = false
local str = 'Your String 1' -- will split
-- local str = '"Your String 1"' wont split
-- local str = "YourString1" wont split
if str:sub(1, 1) == '"' and str:sub(-1,-1) == '"' then
print("String is in quotes")
InQuotes = true
end
if InQuotes == false and string.find(str," ") then
print("String contains space, no quotes")
str = str:split(" ")
else
--
end
print(str)
Sorry. Does not help my problem.
local String = '"Hello1" "Hello2 Hello3" "Hello4" "Hello 5 "'
String = string.gsub(String, '^"', "")
String = string.gsub(String, '"$', "")
local Substrings = string.split(String, '" "')
for _, Substring in ipairs(Substrings) do
print('"'..Substring..'"')
end
I appreciate the help but in my string not all of the ‘phrases’ are surrounded by quotes.
With this code inputting:
“hello” hello
returns
{
“hello” hello"
}
I was using the string you provided, use backticks to correctly format your code not a quoteblock.
You used
“Hello1” “Hello2 Hello3” “Hello4” "Hello 5 "
I’m using
Hello1 “Hello2 Hello3” Hello4 "Hello 5 "
I don’t know if you were looking for something like this?
local something = {
"Hello";
"Hello";
"Hello";
"Hello";
"Hello"
}
print(table.concat(something, ", "))
Output: Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello
I managed to get it working using this extremely hard to read code which makes no sense:
local function GetParameters(Text)
local Parameters = {}
local WithinQuotes = false
local CurrentParameter = ""
for Index, Character in pairs(string.split(Text, "")) do
if Character == "\"" then
if WithinQuotes == false then
WithinQuotes = true
else -- quote ending
WithinQuotes = false
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
CurrentParameter = ""
end
end
else -- character not quote
if WithinQuotes then
CurrentParameter = CurrentParameter .. Character
else -- not within quote
if Character == " " then
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
CurrentParameter = ""
end
else -- not space
CurrentParameter = CurrentParameter .. Character
end
end
end
end
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
end
if WithinQuotes == true then
print("ERROR: Quote left open")
return nil
end
return Parameters
end
GetParameters('Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5 "')
>>>
{
[1] = "Hello1",
[2] = "Hello2 Hello3",
[3] = "Hello4",
[4] = "Hello 5 "
}
{
“Hello1”,
“Hello2 Hello3”,
“Hello4”,
"Hello 5 "
}
Was the example you provided (each have quotation marks), use backticks to correctly format code otherwise you end up with these quotation characters that are not recognised by Roblox’s IDE.
That’s the example output array. Doesn’t matter whether or not the ide can recognize it.
All of the text in the original post contains those illegal quotation characters, it does matter since that’s what we’re expected to use.
Hey there! I have a much more readable function I just made!
This should be of use to you!
local function GetParameters(String)
local Substrings = string.split(String, ' "')
local End_Table = {}
for i, Substring in ipairs(Substrings) do
if string.find(Substring, '" ') then
local ExtraSubstrings = string.split(Substring, '" ')
for _, ExtraSubstring in ipairs(ExtraSubstrings) do
table.insert(End_Table, ExtraSubstring)
end
else
if i == #Substrings then
table.insert(End_Table, string.sub(Substring, 0, -2))
else
table.insert(End_Table, Substring)
end
end
end
return End_Table
end
local String = 'Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5"'
local Result = GetParameters(String)
print(Result)
Output:
{
[1] = "Hello1",
[2] = "Hello2 Hello3",
[3] = "Hello4",
[4] = "Hello 5"
}
Let me know if you need something explained @dv3v!
That’s because it was designed for strings of a particular format.
local String = 'Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5 "'
local Substrings = {}
for Substring in string.gmatch(String, '%b""') do
table.insert(Substrings, Substring)
String = string.gsub(String, Substring, "")
end
for Substring in string.gmatch(String, "%w+") do
table.insert(Substrings, Substring)
end
for _, Substring in ipairs(Substrings) do
print(Substring)
end
and here’s a benchmark comparison.
local function GetParameters(Text)
local Parameters = {}
local WithinQuotes = false
local CurrentParameter = ""
for Index, Character in pairs(string.split(Text, "")) do
if Character == "\"" then
if WithinQuotes == false then
WithinQuotes = true
else -- quote ending
WithinQuotes = false
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
CurrentParameter = ""
end
end
else -- character not quote
if WithinQuotes then
CurrentParameter = CurrentParameter .. Character
else -- not within quote
if Character == " " then
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
CurrentParameter = ""
end
else -- not space
CurrentParameter = CurrentParameter .. Character
end
end
end
end
if CurrentParameter ~= "" then
table.insert(Parameters, CurrentParameter)
end
if WithinQuotes == true then
print("ERROR: Quote left open")
return nil
end
return Parameters
end
local Time = os.clock()
for _ = 1, 1000 do
GetParameters('Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5 "')
end
print(os.clock() - Time) --0.0034617000201251358
local function GetParameters(String)
local Substrings = {}
for Substring in string.gmatch(String, '%b""') do
table.insert(Substrings, Substring)
String = string.gsub(String, Substring, "")
end
for Substring in string.gmatch(String, "%w+") do
table.insert(Substrings, Substring)
end
return Substrings
end
local Time = os.clock()
for _ = 1, 1000 do
GetParameters('Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5 "')
end
print(os.clock() - Time) --0.001576000009663403
Oooh, you even were able to make a even better solution then mine, nice! I’m not the best when it comes to fancy string manipulation.
Benchmarks:
Yours:
local function GetParameters(String)
local Substrings = {}
for Substring in string.gmatch(String, '%b""') do
table.insert(Substrings, Substring)
String = string.gsub(String, Substring, "")
end
for Substring in string.gmatch(String, "%w+") do
table.insert(Substrings, Substring)
end
return Substrings
end
local Time = os.clock()
for _ = 1, 1000 do
GetParameters('Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5 "')
end
print(os.clock() - Time) --0.0019285419984953478
Mine:
local function GetParameters(String)
local Substrings = string.split(String, ' "')
local End_Table = {}
for i, Substring in ipairs(Substrings) do
if string.find(Substring, '" ') then
local ExtraSubstrings = string.split(Substring, '" ')
for _, ExtraSubstring in ipairs(ExtraSubstrings) do
table.insert(End_Table, ExtraSubstring)
end
else
if i == #Substrings then
table.insert(End_Table, string.sub(Substring, 0, -2))
else
table.insert(End_Table, Substring)
end
end
end
return End_Table
end
local Time = os.clock()
for _ = 1, 1000 do
GetParameters('Hello1 "Hello2 Hello3" Hello4 "Hello 5"')
end
print(os.clock() - Time) --0.001910208011395298