How can I convert a comma-separated string to an array?

Hmm, split is dangerous IMHO as a string can always contain a comma. Observe the following:

var myArr = "a,b,c,d,e,f,g,','";
result = myArr.split(',');

So how would you interpret that? And what do you want the result to be? An array with:

['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', '\'', '\''] or
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', ',']

Even if you escape the comma, you'd have a problem.

I quickly fiddled this together:

(function($) {
    $.extend({
        splitAttrString: function(theStr) {
            var attrs = [];

            var RefString = function(s) {
                this.value = s;
            };
            RefString.prototype.toString = function() {
                return this.value;
            };
            RefString.prototype.charAt = String.prototype.charAt;
            var data = new RefString(theStr);

            var getBlock = function(endChr, restString) {
                var block = '';
                var currChr = '';
                while ((currChr != endChr) && (restString.value !== '')) {
                    if (/'|"/.test(currChr)) {
                        block = $.trim(block) + getBlock(currChr, restString);
                    }
                    else if (/\{/.test(currChr)) {
                        block = $.trim(block) + getBlock('}', restString);
                    }
                    else if (/\[/.test(currChr)) {
                        block = $.trim(block) + getBlock(']', restString);
                    }
                    else {
                        block += currChr;
                    }
                    currChr = restString.charAt(0);
                    restString.value = restString.value.slice(1);
                }
                return $.trim(block);
            };

            do {
                var attr = getBlock(',', data);
                attrs.push(attr);
            }
            while (data.value !== '')
                ;
            return attrs;
        }
    });
})(jQuery);

Watch out if you are aiming at integers, like 1,2,3,4,5. If you intend to use the elements of your array as integers and not as strings after splitting the string, consider converting them into such.

var str = "1,2,3,4,5,6";
var temp = new Array();
// This will return an array with strings "1", "2", etc.
temp = str.split(",");

Adding a loop like this,

for (a in temp ) {
    temp[a] = parseInt(temp[a], 10); // Explicitly include base as per Álvaro's comment
}

will return an array containing integers, and not strings.

var array = string.split(',');

MDN reference, mostly helpful for the possibly unexpected behavior of the limit parameter. (Hint: "a,b,c".split(",", 2) comes out to ["a", "b"], not ["a", "b,c"].)

The split() method is used to split a string into an array of substrings, and returns the new array.

var array = string.split(',');