Replace part of a string with another string

Question

Is it possible in C++ to replace part of a string with another string?

Basically, I would like to do this:

QString string("hello $name");
string.replace("$name", "Somename");

But I would like to use the Standard C++ libraries.

Answer 1

To have the new string returned use this:

std::string ReplaceString(std::string subject, const std::string& search,
                          const std::string& replace) {
    size_t pos = 0;
    while ((pos = subject.find(search, pos)) != std::string::npos) {
         subject.replace(pos, search.length(), replace);
         pos += replace.length();
    }
    return subject;
}

If you need performance, here is an optimized function that modifies the input string, it does not create a copy of the string:

void ReplaceStringInPlace(std::string& subject, const std::string& search,
                          const std::string& replace) {
    size_t pos = 0;
    while ((pos = subject.find(search, pos)) != std::string::npos) {
         subject.replace(pos, search.length(), replace);
         pos += replace.length();
    }
}

Tests:

std::string input = "abc abc def";
std::cout << "Input string: " << input << std::endl;

std::cout << "ReplaceString() return value: " 
          << ReplaceString(input, "bc", "!!") << std::endl;
std::cout << "ReplaceString() input string not modified: " 
          << input << std::endl;

ReplaceStringInPlace(input, "bc", "??");
std::cout << "ReplaceStringInPlace() input string modified: " 
          << input << std::endl;

Output:

Input string: abc abc def
ReplaceString() return value: a!! a!! def
ReplaceString() input string not modified: abc abc def
ReplaceStringInPlace() input string modified: a?? a?? def

Answer 2

I use generally this:

std::string& replace(std::string& s, const std::string& from, const std::string& to)
{
    if(!from.empty())
        for(size_t pos = 0; (pos = s.find(from, pos)) != std::string::npos; pos += to.size())
            s.replace(pos, from.size(), to);
    return s;
}

It repeatedly calls std::string::find() to locate other occurrences of the searched for string until std::string::find() doesn't find anything. Because std::string::find() returns the position of the match we don't have the problem of invalidating iterators.

Answer 3

There's a function to find a substring within a string (find), and a function to replace a particular range in a string with another string (replace), so you can combine those to get the effect you want:

bool replace(std::string& str, const std::string& from, const std::string& to) {
    size_t start_pos = str.find(from);
    if(start_pos == std::string::npos)
        return false;
    str.replace(start_pos, from.length(), to);
    return true;
}

std::string string("hello $name");
replace(string, "$name", "Somename");

---

In response to a comment, I think replaceAll would probably look something like this:

void replaceAll(std::string& str, const std::string& from, const std::string& to) {
    if(from.empty())
        return;
    size_t start_pos = 0;
    while((start_pos = str.find(from, start_pos)) != std::string::npos) {
        str.replace(start_pos, from.length(), to);
        start_pos += to.length(); // In case 'to' contains 'from', like replacing 'x' with 'yx'
    }
}

Answer 4

std::string replace(std::string base, const std::string from, const std::string to) {
    std::string SecureCopy = base;

    for (size_t start_pos = SecureCopy.find(from); start_pos != std::string::npos; start_pos = SecureCopy.find(from,start_pos))
    {
        SecureCopy.replace(start_pos, from.length(), to);
    }

    return SecureCopy;
}

Answer 5

This sounds like an option

string.replace(string.find("%s"), string("%s").size(), "Something");

You could wrap this in a function but this one-line solution sounds acceptable. The problem is that this will change the first occurence only, you might want to loop over it, but it also allows you to insert several variables into this string with the same token (%s)

Answer 6

If all strings are std::string, you'll find strange problems with the cutoff of characters if using sizeof() because it's meant for C strings, not C++ strings. The fix is to use the .size() class method of std::string.

sHaystack.replace(sHaystack.find(sNeedle), sNeedle.size(), sReplace);

That replaces sHaystack inline -- no need to do an = assignment back on that.

Example usage:

std::string sHaystack = "This is %XXX% test.";
std::string sNeedle = "%XXX%";
std::string sReplace = "my special";
sHaystack.replace(sHaystack.find(sNeedle),sNeedle.size(),sReplace);
std::cout << sHaystack << std::endl;