Re: Parse messy string into neat data structure

[aquarium]

I'm guessing you're parsing a mediawiki page..in which case the built-in API is more flexible and with more well-defined (xml) responses. If this is the case, the url for the mediawiki is whateveryourwiki/api.php, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php
Or in any case, try harder if you can for your incoming data to be more well defined if possible. Assuming an attribute for your data based on column number is precarious.

[Cody Fendant]

You're guessing wrong, or if I am parsing Wiki code I'm at the end of a long chain which starts with Wiki code and can't help it anyway.

I'm well aware how ugly the input text is, but believe me, I can't fix that.

[aquarium]

So shoot me for asking.
You're right about your code being ugly though..as it's not a good idea to number variables from the split. Either an array, a hash, or even a linked list result could be more appropriate, depending on what you want your "neat data structure" loaded from non-reliable input to do.