How to divide string like this into items in Python
Question: Here is the string:

    
    
    format db "this is string a", 0, 0Ah
    

And I am trying to split it into this:

    
    
    format
    db
    "this is string a"
    0
    0Ah
    

Is there any way can do this in python 2.7?

Thank you!


Answer: Use `shlex.split`:

    
    
    s = 'format db "this is string a", 0, 0Ah'
    
    import shlex
    
    shlex.split(s)
    Out[18]: ['format', 'db', 'this is string a,', '0,', '0Ah']
    

Your grammar is a little wonky with the trailing commas, but you can pretty
safely `rstrip` that out:

    
    
    [x.rstrip(',') for x in shlex.split(s)]
    Out[20]: ['format', 'db', 'this is string a', '0', '0Ah']
    

