delimited text - Delimit a string by character unless within quotation marks C# -

i need demilitarise text single character, comma. want use comma delimiter if not encapsulated quotation marks.

an example:

method,value1,value2 

would contain 3 values: method, value1 , value2

but:

method,"value1,value2" 

would contain 2 values: method , "value1,value2"

i'm not sure how go when splitting string use:

string.split(','); 

but demilitarise based on commas. possible without getting overly complicated , having manually check every character of string.

thanks in advance

copied comment: use available csv parser visualbasic.fileio.textfieldparser or this or this.

as requested, here example textfieldparser:

var alllinefields = new list<string[]>(); string sampletext = "method,\"value1,value2\""; var reader = new system.io.stringreader(sampletext); using (var parser = new microsoft.visualbasic.fileio.textfieldparser(reader)) {     parser.delimiters = new string[] { "," };     parser.hasfieldsenclosedinquotes = true; // <--- !!!     string[] fields;     while ((fields = parser.readfields()) != null)     {         alllinefields.add(fields);     } } 

this list contains single string[] 2 strings. have used stringreader because sample uses string, if source file use streamreader(f.e. via file.opentext).