how to use regex in python to split a string by ","

Question

Here is sql string, and I want to split it by ",", but not the "," in datatime. For example, if the string is:

sub_sql = """(14,datetime.datetime(2013, 7, 22, 10, 40, 22),NULL,'Logical reads','50','ratio','y','Oracle','recommand')"""

and the result is expected as a list: [14, "datetime.datetime(2013 7, 22, 10, 40, 22)", "NULL", 'Logical reads", "50", "ratio", "y", "Oracle", "recommand"]

how to do it with a simple way in python regex?

Answer 1

If you can ensure the commas in the datatime is followed by one space, and there is no space after the other commas, then the following regex will work:

import re
sub_sql = """(14,datetime.datetime(2013, 7, 22, 10, 40, 22),NULL,'Logical reads','50','ratio','y','Oracle','recommand')"""
sub_sql = sub_sql[1:-1] #remove the first and last bracket
re.split(",(?! )", sub_sql)