I need to split a string by commas, and I haven't found an easy way to do it in xstring or xparse (although I may be missing something obvious). So if I say:
\def\pleaseHelp{"I, am, confused"} What is the simplest way to extract:
{"I", "am", "confused"} from \pleaseHelp and store it as a variable? I feel like this should be simple.
listofitems is a powerful list parsing package. Your example is the simplest of its capability:
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{listofitems} \begin{document} \def\pleaseHelp{I, am, confused} \readlist*\mylist{\pleaseHelp}% star option removes surrounding whitespace Individual items:\\ ``\mylist[1]'' and\\ ``\mylist[2]'' and\\ ``\mylist[3]'' Loop over list: \foreachitem\x\in\mylist[]{\ifnum\xcnt=1\else\ and \fi``\x''} \end{document} 
Additionally, you can change the the parsing separator with the following prior to the \readlist:
\setsepchar{;} You can parse based on several separators simultaneously with an or (||) separated specification of separators:
\setsepchar{,||.||;||:} \readlist*\Z{To be, or not to be; that is the question.} will yield a list containing \Z[1] as To be, \Z[2] as or not to be, \Z[3] as that is the question.
You can do nested parsing with a slash (/) separated list of separators, for example:
\setsepchar{*/,} \readlist*\Z{this is, a test* of multi-level, parsing} Then, \Z[1,1] contains this is, \Z[1,2] contains a test, \Z[2,1] contains of multi-level, and \Z[2,2] contains parsing.
When I use the word "contains", I mean "expands to the actual tokens, via two expansions" so that, in the above example, \detokenize\expandafter\expandafter\expandafter{\Z[2,2]} will yield parsing.
As you did not post a MWE here's a simple way to access such a comma separated list's items (have a look at http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/l3kernel/interface3.pdf for further information):
\usepackage{xparse} \ExplSyntaxOn \NewDocumentCommand { \giveme } { m m } { \clist_item:nn { #1 } { #2 } } \ExplSyntaxOff Which can be used as:
\giveme{I, am, confused}{1} % would return I which is item 1 If you really would like to store the variable have a look at the l3clist module described in the document I linked above.
