xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/string/strsep.3 (revision 1de703da)
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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.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/string/strsep.3,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:46 dillon Exp $
38.\"
39.Dd June 9, 1993
40.Dt STRSEP 3
41.Os
42.Sh NAME
43.Nm strsep
44.Nd separate strings
45.Sh LIBRARY
46.Lb libc
47.Sh SYNOPSIS
48.In string.h
49.Ft char *
50.Fn strsep "char **stringp" "const char *delim"
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
52The
53.Fn strsep
54function locates, in the string referenced by
55.Fa *stringp ,
56the first occurrence of any character in the string
57.Fa delim
58(or the terminating
59.Ql \e0
60character) and replaces it with a
61.Ql \e0 .
62The location of the next character after the delimiter character
63(or NULL, if the end of the string was reached) is stored in
64.Fa *stringp .
65The original value of
66.Fa *stringp
67is returned.
68.Pp
69An ``empty'' field (i.e., a character in the string
70.Fa delim
71occurs as the first character of
72.Fa *stringp )
73can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the returned pointer
74to
75.Ql \e0 .
76.Pp
77If
78.Fa *stringp
79is initially
80.Dv NULL ,
81.Fn strsep
82returns
83.Dv NULL .
84.Sh EXAMPLES
85The following uses
86.Fn strsep
87to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an
88argument vector:
89.Bd -literal -offset indent
90char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;
91
92for (ap = argv; (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;)
93	if (**ap != '\e0')
94		if (++ap >= &argv[10])
95			break;
96.Ed
97.Sh SEE ALSO
98.Xr memchr 3 ,
99.Xr strchr 3 ,
100.Xr strcspn 3 ,
101.Xr strpbrk 3 ,
102.Xr strrchr 3 ,
103.Xr strspn 3 ,
104.Xr strstr 3 ,
105.Xr strtok 3
106.Sh HISTORY
107The
108.Fn strsep
109function
110is intended as a replacement for the
111.Fn strtok
112function.
113While the
114.Fn strtok
115function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to
116.St -isoC )
117it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e. detect fields delimited by
118two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
119string at a time.
120The
121.Fn strsep
122function first appeared in
123.Bx 4.4 .
124