1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" Chris Torek. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" from: @(#)strsep.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93 32.\" $NetBSD: strsep.3,v 1.19 2006/10/16 08:48:45 wiz Exp $ 33.\" 34.Dd August 12, 2006 35.Dt STRSEP 3 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm strsep , 39.Nm stresep 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.Ft char * 48.Fn stresep "char **stringp" "const char *delim" "int escape" 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50The 51.Fn strsep 52function locates, in the nul-terminated string referenced by 53.Fa *stringp , 54the first occurrence of any character in the string 55.Fa delim 56(or the terminating 57.Ql \e0 58character) and replaces it with a 59.Ql \e0 . 60The location of the next character after the delimiter character 61(or 62.Dv NULL , 63if 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 70.Dq empty 71field, i.e., one caused by two adjacent delimiter characters, 72can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the pointer returned 73by 74.Fn strsep 75to 76.Ql \e0 . 77.Pp 78If 79.Fa *stringp 80is initially 81.Dv NULL , 82.Fn strsep 83returns 84.Dv NULL . 85The 86.Fn stresep 87function also takes an escape character that allows quoting the delimiter 88character so that it can be part of the source string. 89.Sh EXAMPLES 90The following uses 91.Fn strsep 92to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an 93argument vector: 94.Bd -literal -offset indent 95char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring; 96 97for (ap = argv; ap \*[Lt] \*[Am]argv[9] \*[Am]\*[Am] 98 (*ap = strsep(\*[Am]inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;) { 99 if (**ap != '\e0') 100 ap++; 101} 102.Ed 103.Sh HISTORY 104The 105.Fn strsep 106function 107is intended as a replacement for the 108.Fn strtok 109function. 110While the 111.Fn strtok 112function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to 113.St -ansiC ) 114it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by 115two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single 116string at a time. 117The 118.Fn strsep 119function first appeared in 120.Bx 4.4 . 121