How do I split a comma delimited string in Python except for the commas that are within quotes

Question

I am trying to split a comma delimited string in python. The tricky part for me here is that some of the fields in the data themselves have a comma in them and they are enclosed within quotes (" or '). The resulting split string should also have the quotes around the fields removed. Also, some fields can be empty.

Example:

hey,hello,,"hello,world",'hey,world'

needs to be split into 5 parts like below

['hey', 'hello', '', 'hello,world', 'hey,world']

Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions/help with how to go about solving the above problem in Python would be much appreciated.

Thank You, Vish

Answer 1

Sounds like you want the CSV module.