How to Parse a Delimited String Into a String List

There are many times when you need to split a string into an array of strings by using a character as a separator. For example, a CSV ("comma" separated) file might have a line like "Zarko;Gajic;;DelphiGuide" and you want this line to be parsed into 4 lines (strings) "Zarko", "Gajic", "" (empty string) and "DelphiGuide" using the semi-colon character ";" as a delimiter.

Delphi provides several methods to parse a string, but you might find that neither one does exactly what you need. For example, the ExtractStrings RTL method always uses quote characters (single or double) for delimiters. Another approach is to use the ​Delimiter and ​DelimitedText properties of the TStrings class—but unfortunately, there is a bug in the implementation ("inside" Delphi) where the space character is always used as a delimiter.

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String Handling Routines: Delphi Programming

By Zarko Gajic

The only solution to parsing a delimited string is to write a method of your own:

Delimited String Example

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
procedure ParseDelimited(const sl : TStrings; const value : string; const delimiter : string) ;
var
dx : integer;
ns : string;
txt : string;
delta : integer;
begin
delta := Length(delimiter) ;
txt := value + delimiter;
sl.BeginUpdate;
sl.Clear;
try
while Length(txt) > 0 do
begin
dx := Pos(delimiter, txt) ;
ns := Copy(txt,0,dx-1) ;
sl.Add(ns) ;
txt := Copy(txt,dx+delta,MaxInt) ;
end;
finally
sl.EndUpdate;
end;
end;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Usage (fills in Memo1) :
ParseDelimited(Memo1.lines,'Zarko;Gajic;;DelphiGuide',';')