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 "ewords() 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. "ewords() 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 argument is a boolean flag. If true, then the tokens are split on the specified delimiter, but all other characters (including quotes and backslashes) are kept in the tokens. 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., "ewords() 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. 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 "ewords(), and it does token parsing with whitespace as a delimiter--- similar to most Unix shells.
EXAMPLES
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.
AUTHORS
Maintainer: Alexandr Ciornii <alexchornyATgmail.com>.Previous maintainer: Hal Pomeranz <[email protected]>, 1994-1997 (Original author unknown). Much of the code for &parse_line() (including the primary regexp) from Joerk Behrends <[email protected]>.
Examples section another documentation provided by John Heidemann <[email protected]>
Bug reports, patches, and nagging provided by lots of folks--- thanks everybody! Special thanks to Michael Schwern <[email protected]> for assuring me that a &nested_quotewords() would be useful, and to Jeff Friedl <[email protected]> for telling me not to worry about error-checking (sort of--- you had to be there).
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.