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

This is a string splitting function that can handle multi-character delimiters. Note that if the delimiter is longer than the string that is being split, then buffer and stringLengths will be set to (void *) 0, and numStrings will be set to 0.

This algorithm has been tested, and works. (Disclaimer: It has not been tested for non-ASCII strings, and it assumes that the caller gave valid parameters)

void splitString(const char *original, const char *delimiter, char ** * buffer, int * numStrings, int * * stringLengths){
    const int lo = strlen(original);
    const int ld = strlen(delimiter);
    if(ld > lo){
        *buffer = (void *)0;
        *numStrings = 0;
        *stringLengths = (void *)0;
        return;
    }

    *numStrings = 1;

    for(int i = 0;i < (lo - ld);i++){
        if(strncmp(&original[i], delimiter, ld) == 0) {
            i += (ld - 1);
            (*numStrings)++;
        }
    }

    *stringLengths = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * *numStrings);

    int currentStringLength = 0;
    int currentStringNumber = 0;
    int delimiterTokenDecrementCounter = 0;
    for(int i = 0;i < lo;i++){
        if(delimiterTokenDecrementCounter > 0){
            delimiterTokenDecrementCounter--;
        } else if(i < (lo - ld)){
            if(strncmp(&original[i], delimiter, ld) == 0){
                (*stringLengths)[currentStringNumber] = currentStringLength;
                currentStringNumber++;
                currentStringLength = 0;
                delimiterTokenDecrementCounter = ld - 1;
            } else {
                currentStringLength++;
            }
        } else {
            currentStringLength++;
        }

        if(i == (lo - 1)){
            (*stringLengths)[currentStringNumber] = currentStringLength;
        }
    }

    *buffer = (char **) malloc(sizeof(char *) * (*numStrings));
    for(int i = 0;i < *numStrings;i++){
        (*buffer)[i] = (char *) malloc(sizeof(char) * ((*stringLengths)[i] + 1));
    }

    currentStringNumber = 0;
    currentStringLength = 0;
    delimiterTokenDecrementCounter = 0;
    for(int i = 0;i < lo;i++){
        if(delimiterTokenDecrementCounter > 0){
            delimiterTokenDecrementCounter--;
        } else if(currentStringLength >= (*stringLengths)[currentStringNumber]){
            (*buffer)[currentStringNumber][currentStringLength] = 0;
            delimiterTokenDecrementCounter = ld - 1;
            currentStringLength = 0;
            currentStringNumber++;
        } else {
            (*buffer)[currentStringNumber][currentStringLength] = (char)original[i];
            currentStringLength++;
        }
    }
    buffer[currentStringNumber][currentStringLength] = 0;
}

Sample code:

int main(){
    const char *string = "STRING-1 DELIM string-2 DELIM sTrInG-3";
    char **buffer;
    int numStrings;
    int * stringLengths;

    splitString(string, " DELIM ", &buffer, &numStrings, &stringLengths);

    for(int i = 0;i < numStrings;i++){
        printf("String: %s\n", buffer[i]);
    }
}

Libraries:

#include 
#include 
#include