What is the function to replace string in C?

Question

Given a (char *) string, I want to find all occurrence of a substring and replace it with an alternate string. I do not see any simple function that achieves this in <string.h>

Answer 1

DWORD ReplaceString(__inout PCHAR source, __in DWORD dwSourceLen, __in const char* pszTextToReplace, __in const char* pszReplaceWith)
{
    DWORD dwRC = NO_ERROR;
    PCHAR foundSeq = NULL;
    PCHAR restOfString = NULL;
    PCHAR searchStart = source;
    size_t szReplStrcLen = strlen(pszReplaceWith), szRestOfStringLen = 0, sztextToReplaceLen = strlen(pszTextToReplace), remainingSpace = 0, dwSpaceRequired = 0;
    if (strcmp(pszTextToReplace, "") == 0)
        dwRC = ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER;
    else if (strcmp(pszTextToReplace, pszReplaceWith) != 0)
    {
        do
        {
            foundSeq = strstr(searchStart, pszTextToReplace);
            if (foundSeq)
            {
                szRestOfStringLen = (strlen(foundSeq) - sztextToReplaceLen) + 1;
                remainingSpace = dwSourceLen - (foundSeq - source);
                dwSpaceRequired = szReplStrcLen + (szRestOfStringLen);
                if (dwSpaceRequired > remainingSpace)
                {
                    dwRC = ERROR_MORE_DATA;
                }

                else
                {
                    restOfString = CMNUTIL_calloc(szRestOfStringLen, sizeof(CHAR));
                    strcpy_s(restOfString, szRestOfStringLen, foundSeq + sztextToReplaceLen);

                    strcpy_s(foundSeq, remainingSpace, pszReplaceWith);
                    strcat_s(foundSeq, remainingSpace, restOfString);
                }

                CMNUTIL_free(restOfString);
                searchStart = foundSeq + szReplStrcLen; //search in the remaining str. (avoid loops when replWith contains textToRepl 
            }
        } while (foundSeq && dwRC == NO_ERROR);
    }
    return dwRC;
}

Answer 2

This function only works if ur string has extra space for new length

void replace_str(char *str,char *org,char *rep)
{
    char *ToRep = strstr(str,org);
    char *Rest = (char*)malloc(strlen(ToRep));
    strcpy(Rest,((ToRep)+strlen(org)));

    strcpy(ToRep,rep);
    strcat(ToRep,Rest);

    free(Rest);
}

This only replaces First occurrence

Answer 3

Here's some sample code that does it.

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

char * replace(
    char const * const original, 
    char const * const pattern, 
    char const * const replacement
) {
  size_t const replen = strlen(replacement);
  size_t const patlen = strlen(pattern);
  size_t const orilen = strlen(original);

  size_t patcnt = 0;
  const char * oriptr;
  const char * patloc;

  // find how many times the pattern occurs in the original string
  for (oriptr = original; patloc = strstr(oriptr, pattern); oriptr = patloc + patlen)
  {
    patcnt++;
  }

  {
    // allocate memory for the new string
    size_t const retlen = orilen + patcnt * (replen - patlen);
    char * const returned = (char *) malloc( sizeof(char) * (retlen + 1) );

    if (returned != NULL)
    {
      // copy the original string, 
      // replacing all the instances of the pattern
      char * retptr = returned;
      for (oriptr = original; patloc = strstr(oriptr, pattern); oriptr = patloc + patlen)
      {
        size_t const skplen = patloc - oriptr;
        // copy the section until the occurence of the pattern
        strncpy(retptr, oriptr, skplen);
        retptr += skplen;
        // copy the replacement 
        strncpy(retptr, replacement, replen);
        retptr += replen;
      }
      // copy the rest of the string.
      strcpy(retptr, oriptr);
    }
    return returned;
  }
}

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
  if (argc != 4)
  {
    fprintf(stderr,"usage: %s <original text> <pattern> <replacement>\n", argv[0]);
    exit(-1);
  }
  else
  {
    char * const newstr = replace(argv[1], argv[2], argv[3]);
    if (newstr)
    {
      printf("%s\n", newstr);
      free(newstr);
    }
    else
    {
      fprintf(stderr,"allocation error\n");
      exit(-2);
    }
  }
  return 0;
}

Answer 4

As strings in C can not dynamically grow inplace substitution will generally not work. Therefore you need to allocate space for a new string that has enough room for your substitution and then copy the parts from the original plus the substitution into the new string. To copy the parts you would use strncpy.

Answer 5

This is not provided in the standard C library because, given only a char* you can't increase the memory allocated to the string if the replacement string is longer than the string being replaced.

You can do this using std::string more easily, but even there, no single function will do it for you.

Answer 6

// Here is the code for unicode strings!


int mystrstr(wchar_t *txt1,wchar_t *txt2)
{
    wchar_t *posstr=wcsstr(txt1,txt2);
    if(posstr!=NULL)
    {
        return (posstr-txt1);
    }else
    {
        return -1;
    }
}

// assume: supplied buff is enough to hold generated text
void StringReplace(wchar_t *buff,wchar_t *txt1,wchar_t *txt2)
{
    wchar_t *tmp;
    wchar_t *nextStr;
    int pos;

    tmp=wcsdup(buff);

    pos=mystrstr(tmp,txt1);
    if(pos!=-1)
    {
        buff[0]=0;
        wcsncpy(buff,tmp,pos);
        buff[pos]=0;

        wcscat(buff,txt2);

        nextStr=tmp+pos+wcslen(txt1);

        while(wcslen(nextStr)!=0)
        {
            pos=mystrstr(nextStr,txt1);

            if(pos==-1)
            {
                wcscat(buff,nextStr);
                break;
            }

            wcsncat(buff,nextStr,pos);
            wcscat(buff,txt2);

            nextStr=nextStr+pos+wcslen(txt1);   
        }
    }

    free(tmp);
}