regex - Javascript split string on space or on quotes to array

Question

var str = 'single words "fixed string of words"';
var astr = str.split(" "); // need fix

I would like the array to be like this:

var astr = ["single", "words", "fixed string of words"];

Answer 1

The accepted answer is not entirely correct. It separates on non-space characters like . and - and leaves the quotes in the results. The better way to do this so that it excludes the quotes is with capturing groups, like such:

//The parenthesis in the regex creates a captured group within the quotes
var myRegexp = /[^s"]+|"([^"]*)"/gi;
var myString = 'single words "fixed string of words"';
var myArray = [];

do {
    //Each call to exec returns the next regex match as an array
    var match = myRegexp.exec(myString);
    if (match != null)
    {
        //Index 1 in the array is the captured group if it exists
        //Index 0 is the matched text, which we use if no captured group exists
        myArray.push(match[1] ? match[1] : match[0]);
    }
} while (match != null);

myArray will now contain exactly what the OP asked for:

single,words,fixed string of words