strsep - extract token from string
Contents
Attributes
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
│ Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
│ strsep() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
Bugs
Be cautious when using this function. If you do use it, note that:
• This function modifies its first argument.
• This function cannot be used on constant strings.
• The identity of the delimiting character is lost.
Description
If *stringp is NULL, the strsep() function returns NULL and does nothing else. Otherwise, this function
finds the first token in the string *stringp that is delimited by one of the bytes in the string delim.
This token is terminated by overwriting the delimiter with a null byte ('\0'), and *stringp is updated to
point past the token. In case no delimiter was found, the token is taken to be the entire string
*stringp, and *stringp is made NULL.
Examples
The program below is a port of the one found in strtok(3), which, however, doesn't discard multiple
delimiters or empty tokens:
$ ./a.out'a/bbb///cc;xxx:yyy:'':;''/'
1: a/bbb///cc
--> a
--> bbb
-->
-->
--> cc
2: xxx
--> xxx
3: yyy
--> yyy
4:
-->
Programsource
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *token, *subtoken;
if (argc != 4) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s string delim subdelim\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
for (unsigned int j = 1; (token = strsep(&argv[1], argv[2])); j++) {
printf("%u: %s\n", j, token);
while ((subtoken = strsep(&token, argv[3])))
printf("\t --> %s\n", subtoken);
}
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
History
4.4BSD.
The strsep() function was introduced as a replacement for strtok(3), since the latter cannot handle empty
fields. However, strtok(3) conforms to C89/C99 and hence is more portable.
Library
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
Name
strsep - extract token from string
Return Value
The strsep() function returns a pointer to the token, that is, it returns the original value of *stringp.
See Also
memchr(3), strchr(3), string(3), strpbrk(3), strspn(3), strstr(3), strtok(3) Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-06-15 strsep(3)
Standards
None.
Synopsis
#include<string.h>char*strsep(char**restrictstringp,constchar*restrictdelim); Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)): strsep(): Since glibc 2.19: _DEFAULT_SOURCE glibc 2.19 and earlier: _BSD_SOURCE
