Text::ParseWords(3pm)					 Perl Programmers Reference Guide				     Text::ParseWords(3pm)

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: <$_>
";
	     $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 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).

perl v5.8.0							    2002-06-01						     Text::ParseWords(3pm)