Thank you. Your alternative approach works brilliantly for my problem.


On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com>
wrote:

> On May 6,  8:28am, Jesper Nygards wrote:
> }
> } Is there a way to say "split on '=' but not within quotes", similar to
> the
> } way (z) treats white space?
>
> Not really.  (z) works because it "understands" shell syntax.  You are
> asking for the shell to "understand" HTML syntax.  It does not.  You
> have two choices:
>
> (1) Write an actual HTML element parser, in shell script.  (Probably
> easier to use Perl HTML::Parser or similar.)
>
> (2) Approach the problem differently.  For example, if you first split
> on double-quotes and spaces and then strip off trailing equal signs:
>
> torch% print -l ${${=${(s'"')mystring}}%=}
> <element
> name
> myelement
> url
> http://site.com/path/config?myname=user
> >
>
> Curious aside - this doesn't work:
>
> torch% print -l ${(s:\":)string}
> <element name="myelement" url="http://site.com/path/config?myname=user">
>
> But you can't use an un-escaped quote mark there either:
>
> torch% print -l ${(s:":)string}
> braceparam dquote>
>
> --
> Barton E. Schaefer
>