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POPerl split list on commas except when within brackets?
 

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    <p>I have a database with a number of fields containing comma separated values. I need to split these fields in Perl, which is straightforward enough except that some of the values are followed by nested CSVs contained in brackets that I do not want to split.</p> <p>Example:</p> <pre><code>recycling, environmental science, interdisciplinary (e.g., consumerism, waste management, chemistry, toxicology, government policy, and ethics), consumer education </code></pre> <p>Splitting on ", " gives me:</p> <pre><code>recycling environmental science interdisciplinary (e.g. consumerism waste management chemistry toxicology government policy and ethics) consumer education </code></pre> <p>What I want is:</p> <pre><code>recycling environmental science interdisciplinary (e.g., consumerism, waste management, chemistry, toxicology, government policy, and ethics) consumer education </code></pre> <p>Can any Perl regex(perts) lend a hand?</p> <p>I have tried modifying a regex string I found in a similar SO <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1566035/how-can-perl-split-a-line-on-whitespace-except-when-the-whitespace-is-in-doubleq">post</a> which returns no results:</p> <pre><code>#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $s = q{recycling, environmental science, interdisciplinary (e.g., consumerism, waste management, chemistry, toxicology, government policy, and ethics), consumer education}; my @parts = $s =~ m{\A(\w+) ([0-9]) (\([^\(]+\)) (\w+) ([0-9]) ([0-9]{2})}; use Data::Dumper; print Dumper \@parts; </code></pre>
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    1. COWhat have you tried so far? Please make an effort on your own first, then ask questions showing what you have done.
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    2. COYou can't use a regular expression to parse nested expressions. You need a full-fledged parser.
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    3. COYou might have a look at [Text::CSV](http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Text::CSV) and see if you can tweak it to do what you need.
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