How to find and replace string?

Question

If s is a std::string, then is there a function like the following?

s.replace(\"text to replace\", \"new text\");

Answer 1

Try a combination of std::string::find and std::string::replace.

This gets the position:

std::string s;
std::string toReplace("text to replace");
size_t pos = s.find(toReplace);

And this replaces the first occurrence:

s.replace(pos, toReplace.length(), "new text");

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Now you can simply create a function for your convenience:

std::string replaceFirstOccurrence(
    std::string& s,
    const std::string& toReplace,
    const std::string& replaceWith)
{
    std::size_t pos = s.find(toReplace);
    if (pos == std::string::npos) return s;
    return s.replace(pos, toReplace.length(), replaceWith);
}