CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cstringsplit
Daniel
Daniel

Reputation: 6755

Is there a way to split a string on multiple characters in C?

Is there a way in C to split a string (using strtok or any other way) where the delimiter is more than one character in length? I'm looking for something like this:

char a[14] = "Hello,World!";
char *b[2];
b[0] = strtok(a, ", ");
b[1] = strtok(NULL, ", ");

I want this to not split the string because there is no space between the comma and the W. Is there a way to do that?

Upvotes: 12

Views: 8071

Answers (3)

Didier Trosset
Didier Trosset

Reputation: 37447

You can use char * strstr(const char *haystack, const char *needle) to locate your delimiter string within your string.

char a[14] = "Hello,World!";
char b[2] = ", ";
char *start = a;
char *delim;
do {
    delim = strstr(start, b);
    // string between start and delim (or end of string if delim is NULL).
    start = delim + 2; // Use lengthof your b string.
} while (delim);

Upvotes: 4

Rag
Rag

Reputation: 6593

Something like this maybe? No guarantees that this compiles. ;)

char* strstrtok(char *haystack, char *needle) {
    static char *remaining = null;
    char *working;

    if(haystack)
         working = haystack;
    else if(remaining)
         working = remaining;
    else
         return NULL;

    char *result = working;
    if(result = strstr(working, needle))
        remaining = working + strlen(needle) + 1;

    return result;
}

Upvotes: 1

Kerrek SB
Kerrek SB

Reputation: 477140

You could just repeatedly call substr to find occurrences of your boundary string and split along the results. After you found a result, advance the pointer by the length of the substring and search again.

Upvotes: 9

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