STRSEP(3)						   BSD 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 '' character) and replaces it with a ''.  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., one caused by two adjacent delimiter characters, can be detected by comparing the location referenced by the
     pointer returned by strsep() to ''.

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

EXAMPLES

     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 < &argv[9] &&
	       (*ap = strsep(&inputstring, " 	")) != NULL;) {
		   if (**ap != '')
			   ap++;
	   }

HISTORY

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

BSD
								  August 12, 2006							       BSD