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 optimized method create (or update an existing) array of pointers in *result and returns the number of elements in *count.

Use "max" to indicate the maximum number of strings you expect (when you specify an existing array or any other reaseon), else set it to 0

To compare against a list of delimiters, define delim as a char* and replace the line:

if (str[i]==delim) {

with the two following lines:

 char *c=delim; while(*c && *c!=str[i]) c++;
 if (*c) {

Enjoy

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

char **split(char *str, size_t len, char delim, char ***result, unsigned long *count, unsigned long max) {
  size_t i;
  char **_result;

  // there is at least one string returned
  *count=1;

  _result= *result;

  // when the result array is specified, fill it during the first pass
  if (_result) {
    _result[0]=str;
  }

  // scan the string for delimiter, up to specified length
  for (i=0; i<len; ++i) {

    // to compare against a list of delimiters,
    // define delim as a string and replace 
    // the next line:
    //     if (str[i]==delim) {
    //
    // with the two following lines:
    //     char *c=delim; while(*c && *c!=str[i]) c++;
    //     if (*c) {
    //       
    if (str[i]==delim) {

      // replace delimiter with zero
      str[i]=0;

      // when result array is specified, fill it during the first pass
      if (_result) {
        _result[*count]=str+i+1;
      }

      // increment count for each separator found
      ++(*count);

      // if max is specified, dont go further
      if (max && *count==max)  {
        break;
      }

    }
  }

  // when result array is specified, we are done here
  if (_result) {
    return _result;
  }

  // else allocate memory for result
  // and fill the result array                                                                                    

  *result=malloc((*count)*sizeof(char*));
  if (!*result) {
    return NULL;
  }
  _result=*result;

  // add first string to result
  _result[0]=str;

  // if theres more strings
  for (i=1; i<*count; ++i) {

    // find next string
    while(*str) ++str;
    ++str;

    // add next string to result
    _result[i]=str;

  }

  return _result;
}  

Usage example:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  char *str="JAN,FEB,MAR,APR,MAY,JUN,JUL,AUG,SEP,OCT,NOV,DEC";
  char **result=malloc(6*sizeof(char*));
  char **result2=0;
  unsigned long count;
  unsigned long count2;
  unsigned long i;

  split(strdup(str),strlen(str),',',&result,&count,6);
  split(strdup(str),strlen(str),',',&result2,&count2,0);

  if (result)
  for (i=0; i<count; ++i) {
    printf("%s\n",result[i]);
  }

  printf("\n");

  if (result2)
  for (i=0; i<count2; ++i) {
    printf("%s\n", result2[i]);
  }

  return 0;

}

Answer 2

My version:

int split(char* str, const char delimeter, char*** args) {
    int cnt = 1;
    char* t = str;

    while (*t == delimeter) t++;

    char* t2 = t;
    while (*(t2++))
        if (*t2 == delimeter && *(t2 + 1) != delimeter && *(t2 + 1) != 0) cnt++;

    (*args) = malloc(sizeof(char*) * cnt);

    for(int i = 0; i < cnt; i++) {
        char* ts = t;
        while (*t != delimeter && *t != 0) t++;

        int len = (t - ts + 1);
        (*args)[i] = malloc(sizeof(char) * len);
        memcpy((*args)[i], ts, sizeof(char) * (len - 1));
        (*args)[i][len - 1] = 0;

        while (*t == delimeter) t++;
    }

    return cnt;
}

Answer 3

If you are willing to use an external library, I can't recommend bstrlib enough. It takes a little extra setup, but is easier to use in the long run.

For example, split the string below, one first creates a bstring with the bfromcstr() call. (A bstring is a wrapper around a char buffer). Next, split the string on commas, saving the result in a struct bstrList, which has fields qty and an array entry, which is an array of bstrings.

bstrlib has many other functions to operate on bstrings

Easy as pie...

#include "bstrlib.h"
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
  int i;
  char *tmp = "Hello,World,sak";
  bstring bstr = bfromcstr(tmp);
  struct bstrList *blist = bsplit(bstr, ',');
  printf("num %d\n", blist->qty);
  for(i=0;i<blist->qty;i++) {
    printf("%d: %s\n", i, bstr2cstr(blist->entry[i], '_'));
  }

}

Answer 4

I think strsep is still the best tool for this:

while ((token = strsep(&str, ","))) my_fn(token);

That is literally one line that splits a string.

The extra parentheses are a stylistic element to indicate that we're intentionally testing the result of an assignment, not an equality operator ==.

For that pattern to work, token and str both have type char *. If you started with a string literal, then you'd want to make a copy of it first:

// More general pattern:
const char *my_str_literal = "JAN,FEB,MAR";
char *token, *str, *tofree;

tofree = str = strdup(my_str_literal);  // We own str's memory now.
while ((token = strsep(&str, ","))) my_fn(token);
free(tofree);

If two delimiters appear together in str, you'll get a token value that's the empty string. The value of str is modified in that each delimiter encountered is overwritten with a zero byte - another good reason to copy the string being parsed first.

In a comment, someone suggested that strtok is better than strsep because strtok is more portable. Ubuntu and Mac OS X have strsep; it's safe to guess that other unixy systems do as well. Windows lacks strsep, but it has strbrk which enables this short and sweet strsep replacement:

char *strsep(char **stringp, const char *delim) {
  if (*stringp == NULL) { return NULL; }
  char *token_start = *stringp;
  *stringp = strpbrk(token_start, delim);
  if (*stringp) {
    **stringp = '\0';
    (*stringp)++;
  }
  return token_start;
}

Here is a good explanation of strsep vs strtok. The pros and cons may be judged subjectively; however, I think it's a telling sign that strsep was designed as a replacement for strtok.

Answer 5

My code (tested):

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int dtmsplit(char *str, const char *delim, char ***array, int *length ) {
  int i=0;
  char *token;
  char **res = (char **) malloc(0 * sizeof(char *));

  /* get the first token */
   token = strtok(str, delim);
   while( token != NULL ) 
   {
        res = (char **) realloc(res, (i + 1) * sizeof(char *));
        res[i] = token;
        i++;
      token = strtok(NULL, delim);
   }
   *array = res;
   *length = i;
  return 1;
}

int main()
{
    int i;
    int c = 0;
    char **arr = NULL;

    int count =0;

    char str[80] = "JAN,FEB,MAR,APR,MAY,JUN,JUL,AUG,SEP,OCT,NOV,DEC";
    c = dtmsplit(str, ",", &arr, &count);
    printf("Found %d tokens.\n", count);

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

   return(0);
}

Result:

Found 12 tokens.
string #0: JAN
string #1: FEB
string #2: MAR
string #3: APR
string #4: MAY
string #5: JUN
string #6: JUL
string #7: AUG
string #8: SEP
string #9: OCT
string #10: NOV
string #11: DEC

Answer 6

Below is my strtok() implementation from zString library. zstring_strtok() differs from standard library's strtok() in the way it treats consecutive delimiters.

Just have a look at the code below,sure that you will get an idea about how it works (I tried to use as many comments as I could)

char *zstring_strtok(char *str, const char *delim) {
    static char *static_str=0;      /* var to store last address */
    int index=0, strlength=0;       /* integers for indexes */
    int found = 0;                  /* check if delim is found */

    /* delimiter cannot be NULL
    * if no more char left, return NULL as well
    */
    if (delim==0 || (str == 0 && static_str == 0))
        return 0;

    if (str == 0)
        str = static_str;

    /* get length of string */
    while(str[strlength])
        strlength++;

    /* find the first occurance of delim */
    for (index=0;index<strlength;index++)
        if (str[index]==delim[0]) {
            found=1;
            break;
        }

    /* if delim is not contained in str, return str */
    if (!found) {
        static_str = 0;
        return str;
    }

    /* check for consecutive delimiters
    *if first char is delim, return delim
    */
    if (str[0]==delim[0]) {
        static_str = (str + 1);
        return (char *)delim;
    }

    /* terminate the string
    * this assignmetn requires char[], so str has to
    * be char[] rather than *char
    */
    str[index] = '\0';

    /* save the rest of the string */
    if ((str + index + 1)!=0)
        static_str = (str + index + 1);
    else
        static_str = 0;

        return str;
}

Below is an example usage...

  Example Usage
      char str[] = "A,B,,,C";
      printf("1 %s\n",zstring_strtok(s,","));
      printf("2 %s\n",zstring_strtok(NULL,","));
      printf("3 %s\n",zstring_strtok(NULL,","));
      printf("4 %s\n",zstring_strtok(NULL,","));
      printf("5 %s\n",zstring_strtok(NULL,","));
      printf("6 %s\n",zstring_strtok(NULL,","));

  Example Output
      1 A
      2 B
      3 ,
      4 ,
      5 C
      6 (null)

The library can be downloaded from Github https://github.com/fnoyanisi/zString