STRSEP(3)               NetBSD Library Functions Manual              STRSEP(3)

NAME
     strsep, stresep -- separate strings

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <string.h>

     char *
     strsep(char **stringp, const char *delim);

     char *
     stresep(char **stringp, const char *delim, int escape);

DESCRIPTION
     The strsep() function locates, in the nul-terminated 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 loca-
     tion 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., one caused by two adjacent delimiter charac-
     ters, can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the pointer
     returned by strsep() to `\0'.

     If *stringp is initially NULL, strsep() returns NULL.  The stresep()
     function also takes an escape character that allows quoting the delimiter
     character so that it can be part of the source string.

EXAMPLES
     The following uses strsep() to parse a string, containing tokens delim-
     ited by white space, into an argument vector:

           char **ap, *argv[10], *inputstring;

           for (ap = argv; ap < &argv[9] &&
               (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " \t")) != NULL;) {
                   if (**ap != '\0')
                           ap++;
           }

HISTORY
     The strsep() function is intended as a replacement for the strtok() func-
     tion.  While the strtok() function should be preferred for portability
     reasons (it conforms to ANSI X3.159-1989 (``ANSI C89'')) it is unable to
     handle empty fields, i.e., detect fields delimited by two adjacent delim-
     iter characters, or to be used for more than a single string at a time.
     The strsep() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE               August 12, 2006              NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
