Minix Man Pages

home | help
STRSEP(3)                BSD Library Functions Manual                STRSEP(3)

NAME
     strsep, stresep -- separate strings

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <string.h>

     char *
     strsep(char **stringp, const char *delim);

     char *
     stresep(char **stringp, const char *delim, int escape);

DESCRIPTION
     The strsep() function locates, in the nul-terminated string referenced by
     *stringp, the first occurrence of any character in the string delim (or
     the terminating '\0' character) and replaces it with a '\0'.  The
     location of the next character after the delimiter character (or NULL, if
     the end of the string was reached) is stored in *stringp.  The original
     value of *stringp is returned.

     An "empty" field, i.e., one caused by two adjacent delimiter characters,
     can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the pointer
     returned by strsep() to '\0'.

     If *stringp is initially NULL, strsep() returns NULL.  The stresep()
     function also takes an escape character that allows quoting the delimiter
     character so that it can be part of the source string.

EXAMPLES
     The following uses strsep() to parse a string, containing tokens
     delimited by white space, into an argument vector:

           char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;

           for (ap = argv; ap < &argv[9] &&
               (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \t")) != NULL;) {
                   if (**ap != '\0')
                           ap++;
           }

HISTORY
     The strsep() function is intended as a replacement for the strtok()
     function.  While the strtok() function should be preferred for
     portability reasons (it conforms to ANSI X3.159-1989 ("ANSI C89")) it is
     unable to handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by two
     adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
     string at a time.  The strsep() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

BSD                             August 12, 2006                            BSD
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLES | HISTORY