From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2009-10-21T00:37:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Complex GSUB query

Hi --

On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Ne Scripter wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I am struggling with something and I have yet been able to find anything
> that may help me.
>
> I have a string like follows:
>
> string = "\"bloggs, Joe (JBloggs, INFO)\" joebloggs, \"bloggs, Bill
> (BBloggs, INFO)\" billbloggs"
>
> I want to break this string up into two entries using a _ seperator, one
> for Joe and the other for Bill. I could do this with a simple
>
> string.gsub(",", "_")
>
> However the problem with doing this is that there are commas elsewhere
> in the string. So what I need to say is, if the comma is outside of ""
> (quotes) replace it with the _
>
> Could anyone possibly help me with this?

It looks like the pattern /, "/ occurs at the end of one record into
the beginning of the next one, and nowhere else. Assuming that's
correct, it suggests something like:

   string.gsub(/,(?=\s+")/, '_')

i.e., for any comma which is followed by some whitespace and a double
quote character, replace the comma with an underscore.


David

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