xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/string/strsep.3 (revision e293de53)
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31.\"	@(#)strsep.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
32.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/string/strsep.3,v 1.16 2008/12/05 15:50:59 pjd Exp $
33.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/string/strsep.3,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:46 dillon Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd December 5, 2008
36.Dt STRSEP 3
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm strsep
40.Nd separate strings
41.Sh LIBRARY
42.Lb libc
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.In string.h
45.Ft char *
46.Fn strsep "char **stringp" "const char *delim"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Fn strsep
50function locates, in the string referenced by
51.Fa *stringp ,
52the first occurrence of any character in the string
53.Fa delim
54(or the terminating
55.Ql \e0
56character) and replaces it with a
57.Ql \e0 .
58The location of the next character after the delimiter character
59(or NULL, if the end of the string was reached) is stored in
60.Fa *stringp .
61The original value of
62.Fa *stringp
63is returned.
64.Pp
65An
66.Dq empty
67field (i.e., a character in the string
68.Fa delim
69occurs as the first character of
70.Fa *stringp )
71can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the returned pointer
72to
73.Ql \e0 .
74.Pp
75If
76.Fa *stringp
77is initially
78.Dv NULL ,
79.Fn strsep
80returns
81.Dv NULL .
82.Sh EXAMPLES
83The following uses
84.Fn strsep
85to parse a string, and prints each token in separate line:
86.Bd -literal -offset indent
87char *token, *string, *tofree;
88
89tofree = string = strdup("abc,def,ghi");
90assert(string != NULL);
91
92while ((token = strsep(&string, ",")) != NULL)
93	printf("%s\en", token);
94
95free(tofree);
96.Ed
97.Pp
98The following uses
99.Fn strsep
100to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an
101argument vector:
102.Bd -literal -offset indent
103char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;
104
105for (ap = argv; (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;)
106	if (**ap != '\e0')
107		if (++ap >= &argv[10])
108			break;
109.Ed
110.Sh SEE ALSO
111.Xr memchr 3 ,
112.Xr strchr 3 ,
113.Xr strcspn 3 ,
114.Xr strpbrk 3 ,
115.Xr strrchr 3 ,
116.Xr strspn 3 ,
117.Xr strstr 3 ,
118.Xr strtok 3
119.Sh HISTORY
120The
121.Fn strsep
122function
123is intended as a replacement for the
124.Fn strtok
125function.
126While the
127.Fn strtok
128function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to
129.St -isoC )
130it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by
131two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
132string at a time.
133The
134.Fn strsep
135function first appeared in
136.Bx 4.4 .
137