How can I extract the text within quotes in google sheets? - google-sheets

Question

How can I get just the text within the quotes?
Below shows each line as a cell
a:3:{i:0;s:5:"hello";i:1;s:5:"sdfsf";i:2;s:6:"orange";}
a:4:{i:0;s:5:"hello";i:1;s:3:"How";i:2;s:3:"Are";i:3;s:3:"You";}
a:6:{i:0;s:5:"apple";i:1;s:6:"papaya";i:2;s:6:"Orange";i:3;s:4:"Pear";i:4;s:6:"Banana";i:5;s:9:"Starfruit";}
a:2:{i:0;s:5:"apple";i:1;s:0:"";}
Result that I would like is:
hello,sdfsf,orange
hello,How,Are,You
apple,papaya,Orange,Pear,Banana,Starfruit
apple,

Answer 1

You can use re:
import re
data = """a:3:{i:0;s:5:"hello";i:1;s:5:"sdfsf";i:2;s:6:"orange";}
a:4:{i:0;s:5:"hello";i:1;s:3:"How";i:2;s:3:"Are";i:3;s:3:"You";}
a:6:{i:0;s:5:"apple";i:1;s:6:"papaya";i:2;s:6:"Orange";i:3;s:4:"Pear";i:4;s:6:"Banana";i:5;s:9:"Starfruit";}
a:2:{i:0;s:5:"apple";i:1;s:0:"";}"""
quoted = re.compile('"[^"]*"')
for row in data.split("\n"):
print(",".join(value for value in quoted.findall(row)).replace('"', ""))
This prints:
hello,sdfsf,orange
hello,How,Are,You
apple,papaya,Orange,Pear,Banana,Starfruit
apple,

Answer 2

In case you want to do it using formula, you can use something like this:
=ArrayFormula(TEXTJOIN(",", 1, FILTER(TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(A1, CHAR(34))), IFNA(REGEXEXTRACT(TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(A1, CHAR(34))), "^[a-zA-Z ]*$"), FALSE())<>FALSE())))
Assuming your data is in separate rows.

Answer 3

try:
=ARRAYFORMULA(REGEXREPLACE(TRIM(FLATTEN(QUERY(TRANSPOSE(IFERROR(IF(REGEXMATCH(
SPLIT(REGEXREPLACE(REGEXREPLACE(A1:A, "(:"")", "♂♀"), "("";)", ",♂"), "♂"), "♀"),
SPLIT(REGEXREPLACE(REGEXREPLACE(A1:A, "(:"")", "♂♀"), "("";)", ",♂"), "♂"), ))),,9^9))),
", ♀,|,$|♀", ))

Answer 4

There are a lot of good answers here, but if you want a formula in one cell that gives you the trailing , after apple on the last line (as per your requested output), then you could use:
=arrayformula(regexreplace(flatten(split(textjoin(",",1,if(A1:A<>"",split(regexreplace(regexreplace(A1:A,"""""",char(6655))&char(9999),".\:.|[\:\{\}\;""]","|"),"|"),)),char(9999))),"^,|,$|"&char(6655)&"",))
Assumes your data is in Col A from row 1.
If not:
=arrayformula(regexreplace(flatten(split(textjoin(",",1,if(A1:A<>"",split(regexreplace(A1:A&char(9999),".\:.|[\:\{\}\;""]","|"),"|"),)),char(9999))),"^,|,$",))

Answer 5

Let's say your raw data were in A2:A. You could place the following in cell B2 of an otherwise empty range B2:B ...
=ArrayFormula( IF( A2:A="",, REGEXREPLACE( TRIM( TRANSPOSE( QUERY( TRANSPOSE( IF( REGEXMATCH( SPLIT( A2:A, CHAR(34)), ":|;|\{|\}"),, SPLIT( A2:A, CHAR(34))&",")),, COLUMNS( SPLIT( A2:A, CHAR(34)))))), "\s|[\s,]+$", "")))
This one formula will produce all results for the column. No dragging involved. (Interposed spacing in the formula as shown above is only for the sake of readability here on the site; none of the spaces are actually necessary to the functionality of the formula, and you may remove them if you like.)
If you'd like to pad comma-separated list entries with a space, remove this portion from the formula: \s|.
As to how it works, this is such a custom requirement that I don't think it will be of use to any future site visitors. So I encourage you to dig into it, take it apart and see what the parts do separately and cumulatively. And if you get stuck (if understand it is even important to you at all), feel free to ask any specific question you may have.