Split string with delimiters in C

Question

How do I write a function to split and return an array for a string with delimiters in the C programming language?

char* str = \"JAN,FEB,MAR,APR,MAY,JUN,JUL,         


        

Answer 1

Method below will do all the job (memory allocation, counting the length) for you. More information and description can be found here - Implementation of Java String.split() method to split C string

int split (const char *str, char c, char ***arr)
{
    int count = 1;
    int token_len = 1;
    int i = 0;
    char *p;
    char *t;

    p = str;
    while (*p != '\0')
    {
        if (*p == c)
            count++;
        p++;
    }

    *arr = (char**) malloc(sizeof(char*) * count);
    if (*arr == NULL)
        exit(1);

    p = str;
    while (*p != '\0')
    {
        if (*p == c)
        {
            (*arr)[i] = (char*) malloc( sizeof(char) * token_len );
            if ((*arr)[i] == NULL)
                exit(1);

            token_len = 0;
            i++;
        }
        p++;
        token_len++;
    }
    (*arr)[i] = (char*) malloc( sizeof(char) * token_len );
    if ((*arr)[i] == NULL)
        exit(1);

    i = 0;
    p = str;
    t = ((*arr)[i]);
    while (*p != '\0')
    {
        if (*p != c && *p != '\0')
        {
            *t = *p;
            t++;
        }
        else
        {
            *t = '\0';
            i++;
            t = ((*arr)[i]);
        }
        p++;
    }

    return count;
}

How to use it:

int main (int argc, char ** argv)
{
    int i;
    char *s = "Hello, this is a test module for the string splitting.";
    int c = 0;
    char **arr = NULL;

    c = split(s, ' ', &arr);

    printf("found %d tokens.\n", c);

    for (i = 0; i < c; i++)
        printf("string #%d: %s\n", i, arr[i]);

    return 0;
}