C split a char array into different variables

Question

In C how can I separate a char array by a delimiter? Or is it better to manipulate a string? What are some good C char manipulation functions?

Answer 1

Look at strtok(). strtok() is not a re-entrant function.

strtok_r() is the re-entrant version of strtok(). Here's an example program from the manual:

   #include 
   #include 
   #include 

   int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
       char *str1, *str2, *token, *subtoken;
       char *saveptr1, *saveptr2;
       int j;

       if (argc != 4) {
           fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s string delim subdelim\n",argv[0]);
           exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
       }

       for (j = 1, str1 = argv[1]; ; j++, str1 = NULL) {
           token = strtok_r(str1, argv[2], &saveptr1);
           if (token == NULL)
               break;
           printf("%d: %s\n", j, token);

           for (str2 = token; ; str2 = NULL) {
               subtoken = strtok_r(str2, argv[3], &saveptr2);
               if (subtoken == NULL)
                   break;
               printf(" --> %s\n", subtoken);
           }
       }

       exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
   }

Sample run which operates on subtokens which was obtained from the previous token based on a different delimiter:

$ ./a.out hello:word:bye=abc:def:ghi = :

1: hello:word:bye
 --> hello
 --> word
 --> bye
2: abc:def:ghi
 --> abc
 --> def
 --> ghi