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STRSEP(3) FreeBSD Library Functions Manual STRSEP(3)
NAME
strsep - separate strings
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <string.h>
char *
strsep(char **stringp, const char *delim);
DESCRIPTION
The strsep() function locates, in the string referenced by *stringp, the
first occurrence of any character in the string delim (or the terminating
`\0' character) and replaces it with a `\0'. The location of the next
character after the delimiter character (or NULL, if the end of the
string was reached) is stored in *stringp. The original value of
*stringp is returned.
An "empty" field (i.e., a character in the string delim occurs as the
first character of *stringp) can be detected by comparing the location
referenced by the returned pointer to `\0'.
If *stringp is initially NULL, strsep() returns NULL.
EXAMPLES
The following uses strsep() to parse a string, and prints each token in
separate line:
char *token, *string, *tofree;
tofree = string = strdup("abc,def,ghi");
if (string == NULL)
err(1, "strdup");
while ((token = strsep(&string, ",")) != NULL)
printf("%s\n", token);
free(tofree);
The following uses strsep() to parse a string, containing tokens
delimited by white space, into an argument vector:
char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;
for (ap = argv; (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \t")) != NULL;)
if (**ap != '\0')
if (++ap >= &argv[10])
break;
SEE ALSO
memchr(3), strchr(3), strcspn(3), strpbrk(3), strrchr(3), strspn(3),
strstr(3), strtok(3)
HISTORY
The strsep() function is intended as a replacement for the strtok()
function. While the strtok() function should be preferred for