xref: /minix3/lib/libc/string/strsep.3 (revision 2fe8fb192fe7e8720e3e7a77f928da545e872a6a)

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.\"     from: @(#)strsep.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
.\"	$NetBSD: strsep.3,v 1.19 2006/10/16 08:48:45 wiz Exp $
.\"
.Dd August 12, 2006
.Dt STRSEP 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm strsep ,
.Nm stresep
.Nd separate strings
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In string.h
.Ft char *
.Fn strsep "char **stringp" "const char *delim"
.Ft char *
.Fn stresep "char **stringp" "const char *delim" "int escape"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn strsep
function locates, in the nul-terminated string referenced by
.Fa *stringp ,
the first occurrence of any character in the string
.Fa delim
(or the terminating
.Ql \e0
character) and replaces it with a
.Ql \e0 .
The location of the next character after the delimiter character
(or
.Dv NULL ,
if the end of the string was reached) is stored in
.Fa *stringp .
The original value of
.Fa *stringp
is returned.
.Pp
An
.Dq empty
field, i.e., one caused by two adjacent delimiter characters,
can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the pointer returned
by
.Fn strsep
to
.Ql \e0 .
.Pp
If
.Fa *stringp
is initially
.Dv NULL ,
.Fn strsep
returns
.Dv NULL .
The
.Fn stresep
function also takes an escape character that allows quoting the delimiter
character so that it can be part of the source string.
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following uses
.Fn strsep
to parse a string, containing tokens delimited by white space, into an
argument vector:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;

for (ap = argv; ap \*[Lt] \*[Am]argv[9] \*[Am]\*[Am]
    (*ap = strsep(\*[Am]inputstring, " \et")) != NULL;) {
	if (**ap != '\e0')
		ap++;
}
.Ed
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn strsep
function
is intended as a replacement for the
.Fn strtok
function.
While the
.Fn strtok
function should be preferred for portability reasons (it conforms to
.St -ansiC )
it is unable to handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by
two adjacent delimiter characters, or to be used for more than a single
string at a time.
The
.Fn strsep
function first appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .