split string by spaces and colon but not if inside quotes

Question

having a string like this:

$str = "dateto:'2015-10-07 15:05' xxxx datefrom:'2015-10-09 15:05' yyyy asdf"

the desired result is:

[0] => Array (
    [0] => dateto:'2015-10-07 15:05'
    [1] => xxxx
    [2] => datefrom:'2015-10-09 15:05'
    [3] => yyyy
    [4] => asdf
)

what I get with:

preg_match_all("/\'(?:[^()]|(?R))+\'|'[^']*'|[^(),\s]+/", $str, $m);

is:

[0] => Array (
    [0] => dateto:'2015-10-07
    [1] => 15:05'
    [2] => xxxx
    [3] => datefrom:'2015-10-09
    [4] => 15:05'
    [5] => yyyy
    [6] => asdf
)

Also tried with preg_split("/[\s]+/", $str) but no clue how to escape if value is between quotes. Can anyone show me how and also please explain the regex. Thank you!

Answer 1

I would use PCRE verb (*SKIP)(*F),

preg_split("~'[^']*'(*SKIP)(*F)|\s+~", $str);

DEMO