How does the strtok function in C work? [duplicate]

Answer 1

The strtok function stores data in an internal static variable which is shared among all threads.

For thread safety you should use strtok_r

From http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/Libc/Libc-167/string.subproj/strtok.c

Take a look to static char *last;

char *
strtok(s, delim)
    register char *s;
    register const char *delim;
{
    register char *spanp;
    register int c, sc;
    char *tok;
    static char *last;


    if (s == NULL && (s = last) == NULL)
        return (NULL);

    /*
     * Skip (span) leading delimiters (s += strspn(s, delim), sort of).
     */
cont:
    c = *s++;
    for (spanp = (char *)delim; (sc = *spanp++) != 0;) {
        if (c == sc)
            goto cont;
    }

    if (c == 0) {       /* no non-delimiter characters */
        last = NULL;
        return (NULL);
    }
    tok = s - 1;

    /*
     * Scan token (scan for delimiters: s += strcspn(s, delim), sort of).
     * Note that delim must have one NUL; we stop if we see that, too.
     */
    for (;;) {
        c = *s++;
        spanp = (char *)delim;
        do {
            if ((sc = *spanp++) == c) {
                if (c == 0)
                    s = NULL;
                else
                    s[-1] = 0;
                last = s;
                return (tok);
            }
        } while (sc != 0);
    }
    /* NOTREACHED */
}