In case anyone is curious, here's how I solved the CSV split thing. Again, my SQL skills are limited, but it did the job for me.

    with recursive lst (subidx, elm, input_str) as (
      ( -- initial row
         select nullif(charindex(',', input_str), 0) as subidx, coalesce(substr(input_str, 1, subidx-1), input_str) as elm, input_col as input_str
         from (select 'abc, d, ef, ghj' as input_col) x -- replace subquery with something useful
      )
      union all
      ( -- recursive
         select nullif(charindex(',', substr(input_str, subidx+1)), 0)+subidx as next_subidx, substr(input_str, subidx+1, coalesce(next_subidx-1-subidx, length(input_str))) as next_elm, input_str as next_input_str
         from lst
         where subidx < length(input_str)
      )
    )
    select trim(elm) from lst