regexp for sequence of quoted strings

[Steven Bethard]

gry at ll.mit.edu wrote:
> I have a string like:
>  {'the','dog\'s','bite'}
> or maybe:
>  {'the'}
> or sometimes:
>  {}
>
[snip]
> 
> I want to end up with a python array of strings like:
> 
> ['the', "dog's", 'bite']
> 
> Any simple clear way of parsing this in python would be
> great; I just assume that "re" is the appropriate technique.
> Performance is not an issue.


py> s = "{'the','dog\'s','bite'}"
py> s
"{'the','dog's','bite'}"
py> s[1:-1]
"'the','dog's','bite'"
py> s[1:-1].split(',')
["'the'", "'dog's'", "'bite'"]
py> [item[1:-1] for item in s[1:-1].split(',')]
['the', "dog's", 'bite']

py> s = "{'the'}"
py> [item[1:-1] for item in s[1:-1].split(',')]
['the']

py> s = "{}"
py> [item[1:-1] for item in s[1:-1].split(',')]
['']

Not sure what you want in the last case, but if you want an empty list, 
you can probably add a simple if-statement to check if s[1:-1] is non-empty.

HTH,

STeVe