This will parse a delimited string into an array of arrays. The default delimiter is the comma, but this can be overriden in the second argument.

CSVToArray.js

<--- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
  
	Blog Entry:
	Ask Ben: Parsing CSV Strings With Javascript Exec() Regular Expression Command
	
	Code Snippet:
	1
	
	Author:
	Ben Nadel / Kinky Solutions
	
	Link:
	http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?event=blog.view&id=1504
	
	Date Posted:
	Feb 19, 2009 at 10:03 AM
	
---- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --->


<script type="text/javascript">
 
	// This will parse a delimited string into an array of
	// arrays. The default delimiter is the comma, but this
	// can be overriden in the second argument.
	function CSVToArray( strData, strDelimiter ){
		// Check to see if the delimiter is defined. If not,
		// then default to comma.
		strDelimiter = (strDelimiter || ",");
 
		// Create a regular expression to parse the CSV values.
		var objPattern = new RegExp(
			(
				// Delimiters.
				"(\\" + strDelimiter + "|\\r?\\n|\\r|^)" +
 
				// Quoted fields.
				"(?:\"([^\"]*(?:\"\"[^\"]*)*)\"|" +
 
				// Standard fields.
				"([^\"\\" + strDelimiter + "\\r\\n]*))"
			),
			"gi"
			);
 
 
		// Create an array to hold our data. Give the array
		// a default empty first row.
		var arrData = [[]];
 
		// Create an array to hold our individual pattern
		// matching groups.
		var arrMatches = null;
 
 
		// Keep looping over the regular expression matches
		// until we can no longer find a match.
		while (arrMatches = objPattern.exec( strData )){
 
			// Get the delimiter that was found.
			var strMatchedDelimiter = arrMatches[ 1 ];
 
			// Check to see if the given delimiter has a length
			// (is not the start of string) and if it matches
			// field delimiter. If id does not, then we know
			// that this delimiter is a row delimiter.
			if (
				strMatchedDelimiter.length &&
				(strMatchedDelimiter != strDelimiter)
				){
 
				// Since we have reached a new row of data,
				// add an empty row to our data array.
				arrData.push( [] );
 
			}
 
 
			// Now that we have our delimiter out of the way,
			// let's check to see which kind of value we
			// captured (quoted or unquoted).
			if (arrMatches[ 2 ]){
 
				// We found a quoted value. When we capture
				// this value, unescape any double quotes.
				var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[ 2 ].replace(
					new RegExp( "\"\"", "g" ),
					"\""
					);
 
			} else {
 
				// We found a non-quoted value.
				var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[ 3 ];
 
			}
 
 
			// Now that we have our value string, let's add
			// it to the data array.
			arrData[ arrData.length - 1 ].push( strMatchedValue );
		}
 
		// Return the parsed data.
		return( arrData );
	}
 
</script>