split-string

split-string is a compiled Lisp function in `subr.el'.

(split-string STRING &optional SEPARATORS OMIT-NULLS TRIM)

Split STRING into substrings bounded by matches for SEPARATORS.

The beginning and end of STRING, and each match for SEPARATORS, are
splitting points. The substrings matching SEPARATORS are removed, and
the substrings between the splitting points are collected as a list,
which is returned.

If SEPARATORS is non-nil, it should be a regular expression matching text
which separates, but is not part of, the substrings. If nil it defaults to
`split-string-default-separators', normally "[ \f\t\n\r\v]+", and
OMIT-NULLS is forced to t.

If OMIT-NULLS is t, zero-length substrings are omitted from the list (so
that for the default value of SEPARATORS leading and trailing whitespace
are effectively trimmed). If nil, all zero-length substrings are retained,
which correctly parses CSV format, for example.

If TRIM is non-nil, it should be a regular expression to match
text to trim from the beginning and end of each substring. If trimming
makes the substring empty, it is treated as null.

If you want to trim whitespace from the substrings, the reliably correct
way is using TRIM. Making SEPARATORS match that whitespace gives incorrect
results when there is whitespace at the start or end of STRING. If you
see such calls to `split-string', please fix them.

Note that the effect of `(split-string STRING)' is the same as
`(split-string STRING split-string-default-separators t)'. In the rare
case that you wish to retain zero-length substrings when splitting on
whitespace, use `(split-string STRING split-string-default-separators)'.

Modifies the match data; use `save-match-data' if necessary.