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() functions remove all quotes and backslashes that are not
     themselves backslash-escaped or inside of single quotes (i.e.,
     &quotewords() 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 &quotewords(), 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

quote)
     5 another simple word (note the lack of effect of the backslashed double-

     Replacing &quotewords('\s+', 0, q{this   is...}) with &shellwords(q{this
     is...}) is a simpler way to accomplish 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 Schwern <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).