AnalysisTop: Update the trimming strategy for configuration line

The idea of the new strategy is clearly explained in the comments of the codes.

But briefly speaking, now we do trimming to all characters in the string, except for characters in a pair of quotes.

PhysicsAnalysis/TopPhys/xAOD/TopConfiguration/Root/ConfigurationSettings.cxx

@@ -623,7 +623,93 @@ namespace top {
       }
 
       // remove (multiple) spaces hanging around relevant information
-      boost::algorithm::trim_all(newstring);
+      // if a pair of "" appears, the spaces in "" won't be touched
+      bool hasquote = (newstring.find("\"",0) != std::string::npos);
+      if (!hasquote) boost::algorithm::trim_all(newstring);
+      else { 
+        //split the string into segments, separated by pairs of quotes
+        //e.g. the string "abc \"def\" ghi"
+        //     becomes a vector of 3 strings: "abc", "\"def\"", "ghi"
+        std::vector<std::string> segments;
+        std::vector<bool> segments_isquote;
+        std::size_t strsize = newstring.size();
+        std::size_t tmppos = 0;
+        bool leftquote = true;
+        while (tmppos <= strsize-1) {
+          // find the position of the 1st quote after newstring[tmppos]
+          std::size_t tmppos2 = newstring.find_first_of("\"",tmppos);
+          
+	  // when the quote found has \ ahead of it, jump over and update tmppos2
+	  std::size_t tmppos3 = newstring.find_first_of("\\\"",tmppos);
+          while (tmppos2 == tmppos3+1) {
+	    tmppos3 = newstring.find_first_of("\\\"",tmppos2+1);
+            tmppos2 = newstring.find_first_of("\"",tmppos2+1);
+          }
+
+          // when no more quote found, save the segment from the last rightquote to the end, then quit the loop
+          if (tmppos2 == std::string::npos) {
+            segments.push_back(newstring.substr(tmppos,strsize-tmppos));
+            segments_isquote.push_back(false);
+            break;
+          }
+
+          // check it's a left quote or right quote
+          if (leftquote) {
+            segments.push_back(newstring.substr(tmppos,tmppos2-tmppos));
+            segments_isquote.push_back(false);
+
+            // update the position indicator and leftquote flag
+            tmppos = tmppos2+1;
+            leftquote = false;
+          } else {
+            segments.push_back(newstring.substr(tmppos-1,tmppos2-(tmppos-1)+1)); // have to include the two quotes, which is why +/-1 adjustment is introduced
+            segments_isquote.push_back(true);
+
+            // update the position indicator and leftquote flag
+            tmppos = tmppos2+1;
+            leftquote = true;
+          }
+        }
+
+        // sanity check: if leftquote = false after the loop, it means a left quote is found but not its associated rightquote
+        // in this case, crash the code
+        if (!leftquote) {
+          std::string message = "Problematic configuration line\n";
+          message.append(newstring.c_str());
+          throw std::invalid_argument(message);
+        }
+
+        //run the original trim_all for each segment that is NOT a quote
+        for (uint i = 0; i < segments.size(); i++) {
+          std::string seg = segments.at(i);
+          if (seg.size() == 0) continue;
+          if (segments_isquote.at(i)) continue;
+          boost::algorithm::trim_all(seg);
+
+          // if the segment has a space in the end and it's not the last segment, add the space back
+          if (i+1 != segments.size()) {
+            if (segments.at(i).at(segments.at(i).size()-1) == ' ') {
+              seg += " ";
+            }
+          }
+          // if the segment has a space in the head and it's not the first segment, add the space back
+          if (i != 0) {
+            if (segments.at(i).at(0) == ' ') {
+              seg = " " + seg;
+            }
+          }
+
+          // update the segment
+          segments.at(i) = seg;
+        }
+
+        // combine the segments back to newstring
+        newstring = "";
+        for (uint i = 0; i < segments.size(); i++) {
+          newstring += segments.at(i);
+        }
+      }
+
       if (newstring.empty()) continue;
 
       // handle start of a (sub)selection (implies end of key-value section)