text::parsewords(3)

NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

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!

DESCRIPTION

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_lines(), so if you're only splitting one line you can call &parse_lines() directly and save a function call.

The $keep argument is a boolean flag. If true, then the
tokens are split on the specified delimiter, but all other
characters (quotes, backslashes, etc.) are kept in the
tokens. If $keep is false then the &*quotewords() func tions remove all quotes and backslashes that are not them
selves backslash-escaped or inside of single quotes (i.e.,
&quotewords() tries to interpret these characters just like the Bourne shell). NB: these semantics are signifi
cantly different from the original version of this module
shipped with Perl 5.000 through 5.004. 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 pre
serving quote and backslash characters.

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

EXAMPLES

The sample program:: use Text::ParseWords;
@words = &quotewords(' 0, q{this is "a test" of quote; words
$i = 0;
foreach (@words) {
print "$i: <$_>0;
$i++;; }
produces:: 0: <this>
1: <is>
2: <a test>
3: <of quotewords>
4: <"for>
5: <you>
demonstrating:
� 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(' 0, q{this is...})" with "&shellwords(q{this is...})" is a simpler way to accom plish the same thing.

AUTHORS

Maintainer is Hal Pomeranz <pomeranz@netcom.com>,
1994-1997 (Original author unknown). Much of the code for
&parse_line() (including the primary regexp) from Joerk Behrends <jbehrends@multimediaproduzenten.de>.

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

Bug reports, patches, and nagging provided by lots of
folks-- thanks everybody! Special thanks to Michael Schw
ern <schwern@envirolink.org> for assuring me that a
&nested_quotewords() would be useful, and to Jeff Friedl <jfriedl@yahoo-inc.com> for telling me not to worry about
error-checking (sort of-- you had to be there).

docs.sk