Using tidyr::separate with quoted values containing delimiter

Question

I have a fairly straight forward question & i'm hoping there's a very simple answer that I just haven't stumbled upon yet.

I'm attempting to use tidyr::separate() to create two columns within a data.frame from a single character string column (using a comma as a delimiter). The issue is that the data has multiple commas; however, there are quotes around the left-most column. Is there a way to separate this value into two columns while respecting the contents within the quotes?

#trying to re-create the issue
band_members <- data.frame(col = paste0('"Paul,George,John,Ringo','"',',','Beatles'))
print(band_members)

----------------------------------
               col                
----------------------------------
 "Paul,George,John,Ringo",Beatles 
----------------------------------

#trying to separate
new_dat <- band_members %>% tidyr::separate(col = col,into = c('members','band'),sep = ',')
print(new_dat)

------------------
 members    band  
--------- --------
  "Paul    George 
------------------

^ This is not ideal. What I'd like (below):

------------------------------------
         members             band   
-------------------------- ---------
 "Paul,George,John,Ringo"   Beatles 
------------------------------------

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

If format is always like "members",band , using sep = '",' instead of "," may helps.

band_members %>% 
  tidyr::separate(col = col,into = c('members','band'),sep = '",') %>%
  mutate(members = paste0(members, "\""))

                   members    band
1 "Paul,George,John,Ringo" Beatles

Answer 2

You can use tidyr::extract() rather than separate , and then it's just a case of finding the right regex:

band_members %>% 
  extract(col, c("members", "band"), "^\"(.*?)\",(.*?)$")

Result:

                 members    band
1 Paul,George,John,Ringo Beatles