My preferred method is with this very simple function:
function pattern(text,pattern,start)
return string.sub(text,string.find(text,pattern,start)) end
Example usage:
string = "this,is,an,example,5"
count = 0
Q = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count)
count = count + Q:len() + 1
W = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count)
count = count + W:len() + 1
E = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count)
count = count + E:len() + 1
R = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count)
count = count + R:len() + 1
T = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count)
count = count + T:len() + 1
--To convert the 5 in string to the number 5, just do:
T = tonumber(T)
Of course, this is noticeably repeated. You can shorten it into a function, or just use this one, which uses a comma as a seperator:
function getSeperated(string)
local sep = {}
local done = false
local count,prevVars,tmp = 0,0,0
string = string..",|"
while not done do
count = count + 1
tmp = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count+prevVars)
if tmp == "|" then done = true return sep end
prevVars = prevVars + tmp:len()
table.insert(sep,count,tmp)
end
return sep
end
It returns a table, so assign x = getSeperated(aString) and use x[1], x[2], etc to access the values. Since it called the pattern function, you have to include that in the same file.
For what you need, here is a modified version:
Spoiler
function pattern(text,pattern,start)
return string.sub(text,string.find(text,pattern,start)) end
function getSeperated(string)
local sep = {}
local done = false
local count,prevVars,tmp = 0,0,0
string = string..":|"
while not done do
count = count + 1
tmp = pattern(string,"[^:]+",count+prevVars)
if tmp == "|" then done = true return sep end
prevVars = prevVars + tmp:len()
table.insert(sep,count,tmp)
end
return sep
end
