Given a (char *) string, I want to find all occurrences of a substring and replace them with an alternate string. I do not see any simple function that achieves this in <string.h>.
What function is to replace a substring from a string in C?
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The optimizer should eliminate most of the local variables. The tmp pointer is there to make sure strcpy doesn't have to walk the string to find the null. tmp points to the end of result after each call. (See Shlemiel the painter's algorithm for why strcpy can be annoying.)
// You must free the result if result is non-NULL.
char *str_replace(char *orig, char *rep, char *with) {
char *result; // the return string
char *ins; // the next insert point
char *tmp; // varies
int len_rep; // length of rep (the string to remove)
int len_with; // length of with (the string to replace rep with)
int len_front; // distance between rep and end of last rep
int count; // number of replacements
// sanity checks and initialization
if (!orig || !rep)
return NULL;
len_rep = strlen(rep);
if (len_rep == 0)
return NULL; // empty rep causes infinite loop during count
if (!with)
with = "";
len_with = strlen(with);
// count the number of replacements needed
ins = orig;
for (count = 0; tmp = strstr(ins, rep); ++count) {
ins = tmp + len_rep;
}
tmp = result = malloc(strlen(orig) + (len_with - len_rep) * count + 1);
if (!result)
return NULL;
// first time through the loop, all the variable are set correctly
// from here on,
// tmp points to the end of the result string
// ins points to the next occurrence of rep in orig
// orig points to the remainder of orig after "end of rep"
while (count--) {
ins = strstr(orig, rep);
len_front = ins - orig;
tmp = strncpy(tmp, orig, len_front) + len_front;
tmp = strcpy(tmp, with) + len_with;
orig += len_front + len_rep; // move to next "end of rep"
}
strcpy(tmp, orig);
return result;
}
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.
You could build your own replace function using strstr to find the substrings and strncpy to copy in parts to a new buffer.
Unless what you want to replace_with is the same length as what you you want to replace, then it's probably best to use a new buffer to copy the new string to.
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.
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;
}
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
Here goes mine, it's self contained and versatile, as well as efficient, it grows or shrinks buffers as needed in each recursion
void strreplace(char *src, char *str, char *rep)
{
char *p = strstr(src, str);
if (p)
{
int len = strlen(src)+strlen(rep)-strlen(str);
char r[len];
memset(r, 0, len);
if ( p >= src ){
strncpy(r, src, p-src);
r[p-src]='\0';
strncat(r, rep, strlen(rep));
strncat(r, p+strlen(str), p+strlen(str)-src+strlen(src));
strcpy(src, r);
strreplace(p+strlen(rep), str, rep);
}
}
}
Here goes mine, make them all char*, which makes calling easier...
char *strrpc(char *str,char *oldstr,char *newstr){
char bstr[strlen(str)];
memset(bstr,0,sizeof(bstr));
int i;
for(i = 0;i < strlen(str);i++){
if(!strncmp(str+i,oldstr,strlen(oldstr))){
strcat(bstr,newstr);
i += strlen(oldstr) - 1;
}else{
strncat(bstr,str + i,1);
}
}
strcpy(str,bstr);
return str;
}
You can use strrep()
char* strrep ( const char * cadena, const char * strf, const char * strr )
strrep (String Replace). Replaces 'strf' with 'strr' in 'cadena' and returns the new string. You need to free the returned string in your code after using strrep.
Parameters cadena The string with the text. strf The text to find. strr The replacement text.
Returns The text updated wit the replacement.
Project can be found at https://github.com/ipserc/strrep
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;
}
Using only strlen from string.h
sorry for my English
char * str_replace(char * text,char * rep, char * repw){//text -> to replace in it | rep -> replace | repw -> replace with
int replen = strlen(rep),repwlen = strlen(repw),count;//some constant variables
for(int i=0;i<strlen(text);i++){//search for the first character from rep in text
if(text[i] == rep[0]){//if it found it
count = 1;//start searching from the next character to avoid repetition
for(int j=1;j<replen;j++){
if(text[i+j] == rep[j]){//see if the next character in text is the same as the next in the rep if not break
count++;
}else{
break;
}
}
if(count == replen){//if count equals to the lenght of the rep then we found the word that we want to replace in the text
if(replen < repwlen){
for(int l = strlen(text);l>i;l--){//cuz repwlen greater than replen we need to shift characters to the right to make space for the replacement to fit
text[l+repwlen-replen] = text[l];//shift by repwlen-replen
}
}
if(replen > repwlen){
for(int l=i+replen-repwlen;l<strlen(text);l++){//cuz replen greater than repwlen we need to shift the characters to the left
text[l-(replen-repwlen)] = text[l];//shift by replen-repwlen
}
text[strlen(text)-(replen-repwlen)] = '\0';//get rid of the last unwanted characters
}
for(int l=0;l<repwlen;l++){//replace rep with repwlen
text[i+l] = repw[l];
}
if(replen != repwlen){
i+=repwlen-1;//pass to the next character | try text "y" ,rep "y",repw "yy" without this line to understand
}
}
}
}
return text;
}
if you want strlen code to avoid calling string.h
int strlen(char * string){//use this code to avoid calling string.h
int lenght = 0;
while(string[lenght] != '\0'){
lenght++;
}
return lenght;
}
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