Text::ParseWords(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Text::ParseWords(3p) #

Text::ParseWords(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Text::ParseWords(3p)

NNAAMMEE #

 Text::ParseWords - parse text into an array of tokens or array of arrays

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS #

   use Text::ParseWords;
   @lists = nested_quotewords($delim, $keep, @lines);
   @words = quotewords($delim, $keep, @lines);
   @words = shellwords(@lines);
   @words = parse_line($delim, $keep, $line);
   @words = old_shellwords(@lines); # DEPRECATED!

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN #

 The "nested_quotewords()" and "quotewords()" functions accept a delimiter
 (which can be a regular expression) and a list of lines and then breaks
 those lines up into a list of words ignoring delimiters that appear
 inside quotes.  "quotewords()" returns all of the tokens in a single long
 list, while "nested_quotewords()" returns a list of token lists
 corresponding to the elements of @lines.  "parse_line()" does tokenizing
 on a single string.  The "*quotewords()" functions simply call
 "parse_line()", so if you're only splitting one line you can call
 "parse_line()" directly and save a function call.

 The $keep controls what happens with delimters and special characters:

 true
     If true, then the tokens are split on the specified delimiter, but
     all other characters (including quotes and backslashes) are kept in
     the tokens.

 false
     If $keep is false then the "*quotewords()" functions remove all
     quotes and backslashes that are not themselves backslash-escaped or
     inside of single quotes (i.e., "quotewords()" tries to interpret
     these characters just like the Bourne shell).  NB: these semantics
     are significantly different from the original version of this module
     shipped with Perl 5.000 through 5.004.

 "delimiters"
     As an additional feature, $keep may be the keyword "delimiters" which
     causes the functions to preserve the delimiters in each string as
     tokens in the token lists, in addition to preserving quote and
     backslash characters.

 "shellwords()" is written as a special case of "quotewords()", and it
 does token parsing with whitespace as a delimiter-- similar to most Unix
 shells.

EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS #

 The sample program:

   use Text::ParseWords;
   @words = quotewords('\s+', 0, q{this   is "a test" of\ quotewords \"for you});
   $i = 0;
   foreach (@words) {
       print "$i: <$_>\n";
       $i++;
   }

 produces:

   0: <this>
   1: <is>
   2: <a test>
   3: <of quotewords>
   4: <"for>
   5: <you>

 demonstrating:

 0   a simple word

 1   multiple spaces are skipped because of our $delim

 2   use of quotes to include a space in a word

 3   use of a backslash to include a space in a word

 4   use of a backslash to remove the special meaning of a double-quote

 5   another simple word (note the lack of effect of the backslashed
     double-quote)

 Replacing "quotewords('\s+', 0, q{this   is...})" with "shellwords(q{this
 is...})" is a simpler way to accomplish the same thing.

SSEEEE AALLSSOO #

 Text::CSV - for parsing CSV files

AAUUTTHHOORRSS #

 The original author is unknown, but presumably this evolved from
 "shellwords.pl" in Perl 4.

 Much of the code for "parse_line()" (including the primary regexp) came
 from Joerk Behrends <jbehrends@multimediaproduzenten.de>.

 Examples section and other documentation provided by John Heidemann
 <johnh@ISI.EDU>.

 Hal Pomeranz <pomeranz@netcom.com> maintained this from 1994 through
 1999, and did the first CPAN release.

 Alexandr Ciornii <alexchornyATgmail.com> maintained this from 2008 to
 2015.

 Many other people have contributed, with special thanks due to Michael
 Schwern <schwern@envirolink.org> and Jeff Friedl <jfriedl@yahoo-inc.com>.

CCOOPPYYRRIIGGHHTT AANNDD LLIICCEENNSSEE #

 This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it
 under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.36.3 2023-02-15 Text::ParseWords(3p)