dsulli2000
asked on
Strip surrounding double quotes from array of strings from split using regular expression
Hello-
I am using the following function to parse a CSV file into an array of strings. The function works fine, but all of the values in the resulting array of strings are surrounded by double quotes. I wanted to find an efficient way to strip the surrounding quotes from string values in the resultant array. Im pretty sure I can do this by modifying the regular expression, but not positive.
Private Shared Function ParseLine(ByVal oneLine As String) As String()
Dim r As System.Text.RegularExpress
Return r.Split(oneLine)
End Function
Right now, I am using the following code on the resultant array, which takes a long time and is obviously very inefficient:
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To parsedString.Length - 1
dataStore(recordCount - 1, i) = parsedString(i).Substring(
Next
Thanks in advance. Cheers to whoever can do this :-)
Dan
I am using the following function to parse a CSV file into an array of strings. The function works fine, but all of the values in the resulting array of strings are surrounded by double quotes. I wanted to find an efficient way to strip the surrounding quotes from string values in the resultant array. Im pretty sure I can do this by modifying the regular expression, but not positive.
Private Shared Function ParseLine(ByVal oneLine As String) As String()
Dim r As System.Text.RegularExpress
Return r.Split(oneLine)
End Function
Right now, I am using the following code on the resultant array, which takes a long time and is obviously very inefficient:
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To parsedString.Length - 1
dataStore(recordCount - 1, i) = parsedString(i).Substring(
Next
Thanks in advance. Cheers to whoever can do this :-)
Dan
ASKER
Technically, the string between the outer double quotes could contain double quotes itself..
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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dsulli2000
Ah! I just saw your response. I think the regex is intended to recognize VB-style strings in the CSV.
All these would contain three items:
a, b, c
"a,a", "b,b", "c,c"
"I said, ""Hello""!", this, that
The first item in the last one would be:
"I said, ""Hello""!"
You'd need to intelligently parse this, changing enclosed doubled-double-quotes to single-double-quotes. Note that this applies only to strings that are enclosed by double-quotes. Strings that are NOT enclosed by double-quotes are "raw", and need no additional processing.
So I have a correct solution (though even slower).
[VB.NET with .NET 1.1, compiled, partially tested]
For i As Integer = 0 To parsedString.Length - 1
dataStore(recordCount - 1, i) = ParseItem(parsedString(i))
Next
Function ParseItem(ByVal text As String) As String
Dim oneDoubleQuote As String = """" ' for readability of code below.
Dim twoDoubleQuotes As String = oneDoubleQuote & oneDoubleQuote
If text.Length > 1 _
AndAlso text.StartsWith(oneDoubleQ
AndAlso text.EndsWith(oneDoubleQuo
Return text.Substring(1, text.Length - 2).Replace(twoDoubleQuotes
Else
Return text ' unchanged
End If
End Function
Ah! I just saw your response. I think the regex is intended to recognize VB-style strings in the CSV.
All these would contain three items:
a, b, c
"a,a", "b,b", "c,c"
"I said, ""Hello""!", this, that
The first item in the last one would be:
"I said, ""Hello""!"
You'd need to intelligently parse this, changing enclosed doubled-double-quotes to single-double-quotes. Note that this applies only to strings that are enclosed by double-quotes. Strings that are NOT enclosed by double-quotes are "raw", and need no additional processing.
So I have a correct solution (though even slower).
[VB.NET with .NET 1.1, compiled, partially tested]
For i As Integer = 0 To parsedString.Length - 1
dataStore(recordCount - 1, i) = ParseItem(parsedString(i))
Next
Function ParseItem(ByVal text As String) As String
Dim oneDoubleQuote As String = """" ' for readability of code below.
Dim twoDoubleQuotes As String = oneDoubleQuote & oneDoubleQuote
If text.Length > 1 _
AndAlso text.StartsWith(oneDoubleQ
AndAlso text.EndsWith(oneDoubleQuo
Return text.Substring(1, text.Length - 2).Replace(twoDoubleQuotes
Else
Return text ' unchanged
End If
End Function
AW