char * strtok ( char * str, const char * delimiters );

<cstring>

Split string into tokens

A sequence of calls to this function split str into tokens, which are sequences of contiguous characters spearated by any of the characters that are part of delimiters.

On a first call, the function expects a C string as argument for str, whose first character is used as the starting location to scan for tokens. In subsequent calls, the function expects a null pointer and uses the position right after the end of last token as the new starting location for scanning.

To determine the beginning and the end of a token, the function first scans from the starting location for the first character not contained in separator (which becomes the beginning of the token). And then scans starting from this beginning of the token for the first character contained in separator, which becomes the end of the token.

This end of the token is automatically replaced by a null-character by the function, and the beginning of the token is returned by the function.

Once the terminating null character of str has been found in a call to strtok, all subsequent calls to this function with a null pointer as the first argument return a null pointer.

Parameters

str

C string to truncate. The contents of this string are modified and broken into smaller strings (tokens).
Alternativelly, a null pointer may be specified, in which case the function continues scanning where a successful call to the function ended.

delimiters

C string containing the delimiters.
These may vary from one call to another.

Return Value

Example

/* strtok example */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main ()
{
  char str[] ="- This, a sample string.";
  char * pch;
  printf ("Splitting string \"%s\" into tokens:\n",str);
  pch = strtok (str," ,.-");
  while (pch != NULL)
  {
    printf ("%s\n",pch);
    pch = strtok (NULL, " ,.-");
  }
  return 0;
}

Output:

Splitting string "- This, a sample string." into tokens:
This
a
sample
string

See also.