xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/string/strsep.3 (revision 1670a1c2a47d10ecccd001970b859caf93cd3b6e)
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31.\"	@(#)strsep.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
32.\" $FreeBSD$
33.\"
34.Dd December 5, 2008
35.Dt STRSEP 3
36.Os
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm strsep
39.Nd separate strings
40.Sh LIBRARY
41.Lb libc
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.In string.h
44.Ft char *
45.Fn strsep "char **stringp" "const char *delim"
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Fn strsep
49function locates, in the string referenced by
50.Fa *stringp ,
51the first occurrence of any character in the string
52.Fa delim
53(or the terminating
54.Ql \e0
55character) and replaces it with a
56.Ql \e0 .
57The location of the next character after the delimiter character
58(or NULL, if the end of the string was reached) is stored in
59.Fa *stringp .
60The original value of
61.Fa *stringp
62is returned.
63.Pp
64An
65.Dq empty
66field (i.e., a character in the string
67.Fa delim
68occurs as the first character of
69.Fa *stringp )
70can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the returned pointer
71to
72.Ql \e0 .
73.Pp
74If
75.Fa *stringp
76is initially
77.Dv NULL ,
78.Fn strsep
79returns
80.Dv NULL .
81.Sh EXAMPLES
82The following uses
83.Fn strsep
84to parse a string, and prints each token in separate line:
85.Bd -literal -offset indent
86char *token, *string, *tofree;
87
88tofree = string = strdup("abc,def,ghi");
89assert(string != NULL);
90
91while ((token = strsep(&string, ",")) != NULL)
92	printf("%s\en", token);
93
94free(tofree);
95.Ed
96.Pp
97The following uses
98.Fn strsep
99to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an
100argument vector:
101.Bd -literal -offset indent
102char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;
103
104for (ap = argv; (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;)
105	if (**ap != '\e0')
106		if (++ap >= &argv[10])
107			break;
108.Ed
109.Sh SEE ALSO
110.Xr memchr 3 ,
111.Xr strchr 3 ,
112.Xr strcspn 3 ,
113.Xr strpbrk 3 ,
114.Xr strrchr 3 ,
115.Xr strspn 3 ,
116.Xr strstr 3 ,
117.Xr strtok 3
118.Sh HISTORY
119The
120.Fn strsep
121function
122is intended as a replacement for the
123.Fn strtok
124function.
125While the
126.Fn strtok
127function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to
128.St -isoC )
129it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by
130two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
131string at a time.
132The
133.Fn strsep
134function first appeared in
135.Bx 4.4 .
136