---
name: "Zoidberg::StringParser"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "zoidberg"
version: "0.96-1"
release: "Debian 5.0 (Lenny)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Zoidberg::StringParser"
---

# Zoidberg::StringParser(3pm)

Zoidberg::StringParser - Simple string parser

```
        my $base_gram = {
            esc => '\\',
            quotes => {
                q{"} => q{"},
                q{'} => q{'},
            },
        };
```

```
        my $parser = Zoidberg::StringParser->new($base_gram);
```

```
        my @blocks = $parser->split(
            qr/\⎪/,
            qq{ls -al ⎪ cat > "somefile with a pipe ⎪ in it"} );
```

```
        # @blocks now is:
        # ('ls -al ', ' cat > "somefile with a pipe ⎪ in it"');
        # So it worked like split, but it respected quotes
```

This module is a simple syntax parser. It originaly was designed  to work like the built-in `"split"` function, but to respect quotes. The current version is a little more advanced: it uses user defined  grammars to deal with delimiters, an escape char, quotes and braces. Yes, I know of the existence of Text::Balanced, but I wanted to do this the hard way :) *All grammars and collections of grammars should be considered PRIVATE when used by a Z::SP object.* None by default. TODO FIXME\
 **Collection** The collection hash is simply a hash of grammars with the grammar names as keys. When a collection is given all methods can use a grammar name instead of a grammar.\
 **Base grammar** This can be seen as the default grammar, to use it leave the grammar undefined when calling  a method. If this base grammar is defined *and* you specify a grammar at a method call,  the specified grammar will overload the base grammar. Simple constructor. See "Collection",  "Base grammar" and  "settings" for explanation of the arguments. Splits `$input` as specified by `$grammar`,

`$input` can be either a string or a reference to an array of strings. Such a array reference is used as provided, so it should be possible to use for example tied arrays here.

`$int` is an optional arguments specifying the maximum number of parts the input should be splitted in. Remaining strings are joined and returned as the last part. If you use a grammar with named tokens these are not counted as a part of the string.

Blocks will by default be passed as scalar refs (unless the grammar's meta function altered them) and tokens as scalars. To be a little compatible with `"CORE::split"` all items (blocks and tokens) are passed as plain scalars if `$grammar` is or was a Regexp reference. ( This behaviour can be faked by giving your grammr a value called 'was\_regexp'. ) This behaviour is turned off by the "no\_split\_intel" setting.\
 **settings** The `%settings` hash contains options that control the  general behaviour of the parser. Supported settings are: If this value is set the parser will not throw an exception if for example  an unmatched quote occurs Boolean that tells the parser not to remove the escape char when an escaped token is encountered. Double escapes won't be replaced either. Usefull when a string needs  to go through a chain of parsers. Boolean, disables "intelligent" behaviour of `"split()"` when set. Jaap Karssenberg ⎪⎪ Pardus \[Larus\] \<pardus@cpan.org\> Copyright (c) 2003 Jaap G Karssenberg. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Contains some code derived from Tie-Hash-Stack-0.09 by Michael K. Neylon. Zoidberg, Text::Balanced