xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/string/strsep.3 (revision 984263bc)
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35.\"	@(#)strsep.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
36.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/string/strsep.3,v 1.6.2.6 2002/08/09 16:58:28 archie Exp $
37.\"
38.Dd June 9, 1993
39.Dt STRSEP 3
40.Os
41.Sh NAME
42.Nm strsep
43.Nd separate strings
44.Sh LIBRARY
45.Lb libc
46.Sh SYNOPSIS
47.In string.h
48.Ft char *
49.Fn strsep "char **stringp" "const char *delim"
50.Sh DESCRIPTION
51The
52.Fn strsep
53function locates, in the string referenced by
54.Fa *stringp ,
55the first occurrence of any character in the string
56.Fa delim
57(or the terminating
58.Ql \e0
59character) and replaces it with a
60.Ql \e0 .
61The location of the next character after the delimiter character
62(or NULL, if the end of the string was reached) is stored in
63.Fa *stringp .
64The original value of
65.Fa *stringp
66is returned.
67.Pp
68An ``empty'' field (i.e., a character in the string
69.Fa delim
70occurs as the first character of
71.Fa *stringp )
72can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the returned pointer
73to
74.Ql \e0 .
75.Pp
76If
77.Fa *stringp
78is initially
79.Dv NULL ,
80.Fn strsep
81returns
82.Dv NULL .
83.Sh EXAMPLES
84The following uses
85.Fn strsep
86to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an
87argument vector:
88.Bd -literal -offset indent
89char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;
90
91for (ap = argv; (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;)
92	if (**ap != '\e0')
93		if (++ap >= &argv[10])
94			break;
95.Ed
96.Sh SEE ALSO
97.Xr memchr 3 ,
98.Xr strchr 3 ,
99.Xr strcspn 3 ,
100.Xr strpbrk 3 ,
101.Xr strrchr 3 ,
102.Xr strspn 3 ,
103.Xr strstr 3 ,
104.Xr strtok 3
105.Sh HISTORY
106The
107.Fn strsep
108function
109is intended as a replacement for the
110.Fn strtok
111function.
112While the
113.Fn strtok
114function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to
115.St -isoC )
116it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e. detect fields delimited by
117two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
118string at a time.
119The
120.Fn strsep
121function first appeared in
122.Bx 4.4 .
123