llParseStringKeepNulls

Category: Data Conversion

function

Function syntax

list llParseStringKeepNulls(

string src,// Source string to parse.
list separators,// A list of up to 8 strings representing separators to be discarded.
list spacers// A list of up to 8 strings representing spacers to be preserved in the list.

);

Returns: list
Energy: 10

Breaks the string src into a list of substrings, discarding separators and keeping spacers, while preserving empty null values (unlike llParseString2List). separators and spacers accept up to 8 string entries each.

Returns a list that is src broken into a list, discarding separators, keeping spacers, keeping any null values generated.

list result = llParseStringKeepNulls("", [], []);

Specification

The behavior is identical to that for llParseString2List, except blank strings found in the list are kept. This is useful when parsing a list that contains values that can be null or empty (and subsequently removing the nulls would upset the distribution of data and the element indexes).

llParseStringKeepNulls("", ["~"], []) will return [""]

Caveats

Only the first 8 separators and first 8 spacers will be used any extras will be ignored.
All separators and spacers must be strings, all other types will be ignored.
separators take precedent over spacers. The string is parsed from start to finish, each position is compared against the separators then spacers before moving onto the next position. The first match is the one that is returned. Using the list [“A”, “AB”] will always act with “A” and never “AB”.
Duplicate or irrelevant separators or spacers count towards the limits and slow down parsing.
All entries in the return are typed as string. Use explicit typecasting on llList2String to convert the values into other types. Do not rely upon the implicit typecasting of the other llList2* functions (as they typically return a default value).
Remember to capture the result of the operation with a variable, unless you are planning to act directly on the results.

Examples

Example 1

10 collapsed lines
default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        // This will say:
        // <A><crazy><fox><.><Saw><the><moon><.><.>
        string my_string = "A crazy fox.  Saw the moon..";
        list my_list = llParseString2List(my_string,[" "],["."]);
        llOwnerSay("<" + llDumpList2String(my_list,"><") + ">");

        // This will say:
        //  <A><crazy><fox><.><><><Saw><the><moon><.><><.><>
        my_list = llParseStringKeepNulls(my_string,[" "],["."]);
        llOwnerSay("<" + llDumpList2String(my_list,"><") + ">");
    }
}

Helper functions

Replacement functions without or very large separator/spacer count limits

ParseString2List — Functions exactly the same as llParseString2List and llParseStringKeepNulls.
separateWords — Functions the same as llParseString2List unless certain preconditions are not met.