How do I tokenize a string in C++?

Question

Java has a convenient split method:

String str = "The quick brown fox";
String[] results = str.split(" ");

Is there an easy way to do this in C++?

Answer 1

Another quick way is to use getline. Something like:

stringstream ss("bla bla");
string s;

while (getline(ss, s, ' ')) {
 cout << s << endl;
}

If you want, you can make a simple split() method returning a vector<string>, which is really useful.

Answer 2

You can use streams, iterators, and the copy algorithm to do this fairly directly.

#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
#include <istream>
#include <ostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <sstream>
#include <algorithm>

int main()
{
  std::string str = "The quick brown fox";

  // construct a stream from the string
  std::stringstream strstr(str);

  // use stream iterators to copy the stream to the vector as whitespace separated strings
  std::istream_iterator<std::string> it(strstr);
  std::istream_iterator<std::string> end;
  std::vector<std::string> results(it, end);

  // send the vector to stdout.
  std::ostream_iterator<std::string> oit(std::cout);
  std::copy(results.begin(), results.end(), oit);
}

Answer 3

Here's a real simple one:

#include <vector>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

vector<string> split(const char *str, char c = ' ')
{
    vector<string> result;

    do
    {
        const char *begin = str;

        while(*str != c && *str)
            str++;

        result.push_back(string(begin, str));
    } while (0 != *str++);

    return result;
}

Answer 4

Check this example. It might help you..

#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>

using namespace std;

int main ()
{
    string tmps;
    istringstream is ("the dellimiter is the space");
    while (is.good ()) {
        is >> tmps;
        cout << tmps << "\n";
    }
    return 0;
}

Answer 5

Use strtok. In my opinion, there isn't a need to build a class around tokenizing unless strtok doesn't provide you with what you need. It might not, but in 15+ years of writing various parsing code in C and C++, I've always used strtok. Here is an example

char myString[] = "The quick brown fox";
char *p = strtok(myString, " ");
while (p) {
    printf ("Token: %s\n", p);
    p = strtok(NULL, " ");
}

A few caveats (which might not suit your needs). The string is "destroyed" in the process, meaning that EOS characters are placed inline in the delimter spots. Correct usage might require you to make a non-const version of the string. You can also change the list of delimiters mid parse.

In my own opinion, the above code is far simpler and easier to use than writing a separate class for it. To me, this is one of those functions that the language provides and it does it well and cleanly. It's simply a "C based" solution. It's appropriate, it's easy, and you don't have to write a lot of extra code :-)

Answer 6

Many overly complicated suggestions here. Try this simple std::string solution:

using namespace std;

string someText = ...

string::size_type tokenOff = 0, sepOff = tokenOff;
while (sepOff != string::npos)
{
    sepOff = someText.find(' ', sepOff);
    string::size_type tokenLen = (sepOff == string::npos) ? sepOff : sepOff++ - tokenOff;
    string token = someText.substr(tokenOff, tokenLen);
    if (!token.empty())
        /* do something with token */;
    tokenOff = sepOff;
}