xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/string/strsep.3 (revision e5b786625f7f82a1fa91e41823332459ea5550f9)
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31.\"	@(#)strsep.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
32.\"
33.Dd May 28, 2018
34.Dt STRSEP 3
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm strsep
38.Nd separate strings
39.Sh LIBRARY
40.Lb libc
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In string.h
43.Ft char *
44.Fn strsep "char **stringp" "const char *delim"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Fn strsep
48function locates, in the string referenced by
49.Fa *stringp ,
50the first occurrence of any character in the string
51.Fa delim
52(or the terminating
53.Ql \e0
54character) and replaces it with a
55.Ql \e0 .
56The location of the next character after the delimiter character
57(or NULL, if the end of the string was reached) is stored in
58.Fa *stringp .
59The original value of
60.Fa *stringp
61is returned.
62.Pp
63An
64.Dq empty
65field (i.e., a character in the string
66.Fa delim
67occurs as the first character of
68.Fa *stringp )
69can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the returned pointer
70to
71.Ql \e0 .
72.Pp
73If
74.Fa *stringp
75is initially
76.Dv NULL ,
77.Fn strsep
78returns
79.Dv NULL .
80.Sh EXAMPLES
81The following uses
82.Fn strsep
83to parse a string, and prints each token in separate line:
84.Bd -literal -offset indent
85char *token, *string, *tofree;
86
87tofree = string = strdup("abc,def,ghi");
88if (string == NULL)
89	err(1, "strdup");
90while ((token = strsep(&string, ",")) != NULL)
91	printf("%s\en", token);
92
93free(tofree);
94.Ed
95.Pp
96The following uses
97.Fn strsep
98to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an
99argument vector:
100.Bd -literal -offset indent
101char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;
102
103for (ap = argv; (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;)
104	if (**ap != '\e0')
105		if (++ap >= &argv[10])
106			break;
107.Ed
108.Sh SEE ALSO
109.Xr memchr 3 ,
110.Xr strchr 3 ,
111.Xr strcspn 3 ,
112.Xr strpbrk 3 ,
113.Xr strrchr 3 ,
114.Xr strspn 3 ,
115.Xr strstr 3 ,
116.Xr strtok 3
117.Sh HISTORY
118The
119.Fn strsep
120function
121is intended as a replacement for the
122.Fn strtok
123function.
124While the
125.Fn strtok
126function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to
127.St -isoC )
128it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by
129two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
130string at a time.
131The
132.Fn strsep
133function first appeared in
134.Bx 4.4 .
135