extract string value from a string - c

gcc 4.4.3
c89
I have the following string
sip:12387654345443222118765#xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
How can I extract just the number? I just want the number.
12387654345443222118765
Many thanks for any advice,

There are lots of ways to do it, if the string is well-formatted you could use strchr() to search for the : and use strchr() again to search for the # and take everything in between.
Here is another method that looks for a continuous sequence of digits:
char *start = sipStr + strcspn(sipStr, "0123456789");
int len = strspn(start, "0123456789");
char *copy = malloc(len + 1);
memcpy(copy, start, len);
copy[len] = '\0'; //add null terminator
...
//don't forget to
free(copy);

It sounds like you want it as a numeric type, which is going to be difficult (it's too large to fit in an int or a long). In theory you could just do:
const char* original = "sip:12387654345443222118765#xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
long num = strtoul(original + 4, NULL, 10);
but it will overflow and strtoul will return -1. If you want it as a string and you know it's always going to be that exact length, you can just pull out the substring with strcpy/strncpy:
const char* original = "sip:12387654345443222118765#xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
char num[24];
strncpy(num, original + 4, 23);
num[23] = 0;
If you don't know it's going to be 23 characters long every time, you'll need to find the # sign in the original string first:
unsigned int num_length = strchr(original, '#') - (original + 4);
char* num = malloc(num_length + 1);
strncpy(num, original + 4, num_length);
num[num_length] = 0;

Use a regular expression :)
#include <regex.h>
regcomp() // compile your regex
regexec() // run your regex
regfree() // free your regex
:)

Have a look into the strtok or strtok_r functions.

Here is something that will deal with a variable width substring, which doesn't care about the starting position of the substring. For instance, if string was iax2:xxx#xx.xx.xx.xx, it would still work. It will, however return NULL if either delimiter can't be found.
It uses strchr() to find the delimiters, which lets us know where to start copying and where to stop. It returns an allocated string, the calling function must free() the returned pointer.
I'm pretty sure this is what you want?
Note: Edited from original to be more re-usable and a bit saner.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
char *extract_string(const char *str, const char s1, const char s2)
{
char *ret = NULL, *pos1 = NULL, *pos2 = NULL;
size_t len;
if (str == NULL || s1 < 0 || s2 < 0)
return NULL;
pos1 = strchr(str, s1);
pos2 = strchr(str, s2);
if (! pos1 || ! pos2)
return NULL;
len = ((pos2 - str) - (pos1 - str) - 1);
ret = (char *) malloc(len + 1);
if (ret == NULL)
return NULL;
memcpy(ret, str + (pos1 - str) + 1, len);
ret[len] = '\0';
return ret;
}
int main(void)
{
const char *string = "sip:12387654345443222118765#xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
char *buff = NULL;
buff = extract_string(string, ':', '#');
if (buff == NULL)
return 1;
printf("The string extracted from %s is %s\n" , string, buff);
free(buff);
return 0;
}
You could easily modify that to not care if the second delimiter is not found and just copy everything to the right of the first. That's an exercise for the reader.

Related

Extracting the first two words in a sentence in C without pointers

I am getting used to writing eBPF code as of now and want to avoid using pointers in my BPF text due to how difficult it is to get a correct output out of it. Using strtok() seems to be out of the question due to all of the example codes requiring pointers. I also want to expand it to CSV files in the future since this is a means of practice for me. I was able to find another user's code here but it gives me an error with the BCC terminal due to the one pointer.
char str[256];
bpf_probe_read_user(&str, sizeof(str), (void *)PT_REGS_RC(ctx));
char token[] = strtok(str, ",");
char input[] ="first second third forth";
char delimiter[] = " ";
char firstWord, *secondWord, *remainder, *context;
int inputLength = strlen(input);
char *inputCopy = (char*) calloc(inputLength + 1, sizeof(char));
strncpy(inputCopy, input, inputLength);
str = strtok_r (inputCopy, delimiter, &context);
secondWord = strtok_r (NULL, delimiter, &context);
remainder = context;
getchar();
free(inputCopy);
Pointers are powerful, and you wont be able to avoid them for very long. The time you invest in learning them is definitively worth it.
Here is an example:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
/**
Extracts the word with the index "n" in the string "str".
Words are delimited by a blank space or the end of the string.
}*/
char *getWord(char *str, int n)
{
int words = 0;
int length = 0;
int beginIndex = 0;
int endIndex = 0;
char currentchar;
while ((currentchar = str[endIndex++]) != '\0')
{
if (currentchar == ' ')
{
if (n == words)
break;
if (length > 0)
words++;
length = 0;
beginIndex = endIndex;
continue;
}
length++;
}
if (n == words)
{
char *result = malloc(sizeof(char) * length + 1);
if (result == NULL)
{
printf("Error while allocating memory!\n");
exit(1);
}
memcpy(result, str + beginIndex, length);
result[length] = '\0';
return result;
}else
return NULL;
}
You can easily use the function:
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char string[] = "Pointers are cool!";
char *word = getWord(string, 2);
printf("The third word is: '%s'\n", word);
free(word); //Don't forget to de-allocate the memory!
return 0;
}

How to replace a part of a string with another substring

I need the string "on" to be replaced with "in", strstr() function returns a pointer to a string so i figured assigning the new value to that pointer would work but it didn't
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void) {
char *m = "cat on couch";
*strstr(m, "on") = "in";
printf("%s\n", m);
}
Replacing a substring with another is easy if both substrings have the same length:
locate the position of the substring with strstr
if it is present, use memcpy to overwrite it with the new substring.
assigning the pointer with *strstr(m, "on") = "in"; is incorrect and should generate a compiler warning. You would avoid such mistakes with gcc -Wall -Werror.
note however that you cannot modify a string literal, you need to define an initialized array of char so you can modify it.
Here is a corrected version:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void) {
char m[] = "cat on couch";
char *p = strstr(m, "on");
if (p != NULL) {
memcpy(p, "in", 2);
}
printf("%s\n", m);
return 0;
}
If the replacement is shorter, the code is a little more complicated:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void) {
char m[] = "cat is out roaming";
char *p = strstr(m, "out");
if (p != NULL) {
memcpy(p, "in", 2);
memmove(p + 2, p + 3, strlen(p + 3) + 1);
}
printf("%s\n", m);
return 0;
}
In the generic case, it is even more complicated and the array must be large enough to accommodate for the length difference:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void) {
char m[30] = "cat is inside the barn";
char *p = strstr(m, "inside");
if (p != NULL) {
memmove(p + 7, p + 6, strlen(p + 6) + 1);
memcpy(p, "outside", 7);
}
printf("%s\n", m);
return 0;
}
Here is a generic function that handles all cases:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char *strreplace(char *s, const char *s1, const char *s2) {
char *p = strstr(s, s1);
if (p != NULL) {
size_t len1 = strlen(s1);
size_t len2 = strlen(s2);
if (len1 != len2)
memmove(p + len2, p + len1, strlen(p + len1) + 1);
memcpy(p, s2, len2);
}
return s;
}
int main(void) {
char m[30] = "cat is inside the barn";
printf("%s\n", m);
printf("%s\n", strreplace(m, "inside", "in"));
printf("%s\n", strreplace(m, "in", "on"));
printf("%s\n", strreplace(m, "on", "outside"));
return 0;
}
There are a few problems with this approach. First, off, m is pointing to read-only memory, so attempting to overwrite the memory there it is undefined behavior.
Second, the line: strstr(m, "on") = "in" is not going to change the pointed-to string, but instead reassign the pointer.
Solution:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void)
{
char m[] = "cat on couch";
memcpy(strstr(m, "on"), "in", 2);
printf("%s\n", m);
}
Note that if you had just used plain strcpy it would null-terminate after "cat in", so memcpy is necessary here. strncpy will also work, but you should read this discussion before using it.
It should also be known that if you are dealing with strings that are not hard-coded constants in your program, you should always check the return value of strstr, strchr, and related functions for NULL.
This function performs a generic pattern replace for all instances of a substring with a replacement string. It allocates a buffer of the correct size for the result. Behaviour is well defined for the case of the empty substring corresponding to the javascript replace() semantics. Where possible memcpy is used in place of strcpy.
/*
* strsub : substring and replace substring in strings.
*
* Function to replace a substring with a replacement string. Returns a
* buffer of the correct size containing the input string with all instances
* of the substring replaced by the replacement string.
*
* If the substring is empty the replace string is written before each character
* and at the end of the string.
*
* Returns NULL on error after setting the error number.
*
*/
char * strsub (char *input, char *substring, char *replace)
{
int number_of_matches = 0;
size_t substring_size = strlen(substring), replace_size = strlen(replace), buffer_size;
char *buffer, *bp, *ip;
/*
* Count the number of non overlapping substring occurences in the input string. This
* information is used to calculate the correct buffer size.
*/
if (substring_size)
{
ip = strstr(input, substring);
while (ip != NULL)
{
number_of_matches++;
ip = strstr(ip+substring_size, substring);
}
}
else
number_of_matches = strlen (input) + 1;
/*
* Allocate a buffer of the correct size for the output.
*/
buffer_size = strlen(input) + number_of_matches*(replace_size - substring_size) + 1;
if ((buffer = ((char *) malloc(buffer_size))) == NULL)
{
errno=ENOMEM;
return NULL;
}
/*
* Rescan the string replacing each occurence of a match with the replacement string.
* Take care to copy buffer content between matches or in the case of an empty find
* string one character.
*/
bp = buffer;
ip = strstr(input, substring);
while ((ip != NULL) && (*input != '\0'))
{
if (ip == input)
{
memcpy (bp, replace, replace_size+1);
bp += replace_size;
if (substring_size)
input += substring_size;
else
*(bp++) = *(input++);
ip = strstr(input, substring);
}
else
while (input != ip)
*(bp++) = *(input++);
}
/*
* Write any remaining suffix to the buffer, or in the case of an empty find string
* append the replacement pattern.
*/
if (substring_size)
strcpy (bp, input);
else
memcpy (bp, replace, replace_size+1);
return buffer;
}
For testing purposes I include a main program that uses the replacement function.
#define BUFSIZE 1024
char * read_string (const char * prompt)
{
char *buf, *bp;
if ((buf=(char *)malloc(BUFSIZE))==NULL)
{
error (0, ENOMEM, "Memory allocation failure in read_string");
return NULL;
}
else
bp=buf;
printf ("%s\n> ", prompt);
while ((*bp=getchar()) != '\n')bp++;
*bp = '\0';
return buf;
}
int main ()
{
char * input_string = read_string ("Please enter the input string");
char * pattern_string = read_string ("Please enter the test string");
char * replace_string = read_string ("Please enter the replacement string");
char * output_string = strsub (input_string, pattern_string, replace_string);
printf ("Result :\n> %s\n", output_string);
free (input_string);
free (pattern_string);
free (replace_string);
free (output_string);
exit(0);
}

Why does my string_split implementation not work?

My str_split function returns (or at least I think it does) a char** - so a list of strings essentially. It takes a string parameter, a char delimiter to split the string on, and a pointer to an int to place the number of strings detected.
The way I did it, which may be highly inefficient, is to make a buffer of x length (x = length of string), then copy element of string until we reach delimiter, or '\0' character. Then it copies the buffer to the char**, which is what we are returning (and has been malloced earlier, and can be freed from main()), then clears the buffer and repeats.
Although the algorithm may be iffy, the logic is definitely sound as my debug code (the _D) shows it's being copied correctly. The part I'm stuck on is when I make a char** in main, set it equal to my function. It doesn't return null, crash the program, or throw any errors, but it doesn't quite seem to work either. I'm assuming this is what is meant be the term Undefined Behavior.
Anyhow, after a lot of thinking (I'm new to all this) I tried something else, which you will see in the code, currently commented out. When I use malloc to copy the buffer to a new string, and pass that copy to aforementioned char**, it seems to work perfectly. HOWEVER, this creates an obvious memory leak as I can't free it later... so I'm lost.
When I did some research I found this post, which follows the idea of my code almost exactly and works, meaning there isn't an inherent problem with the format (return value, parameters, etc) of my str_split function. YET his only has 1 malloc, for the char**, and works just fine.
Below is my code. I've been trying to figure this out and it's scrambling my brain, so I'd really appreciate help!! Sorry in advance for the 'i', 'b', 'c' it's a bit convoluted I know.
Edit: should mention that with the following code,
ret[c] = buffer;
printf("Content of ret[%i] = \"%s\" \n", c, ret[c]);
it does indeed print correctly. It's only when I call the function from main that it gets weird. I'm guessing it's because it's out of scope ?
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define DEBUG
#ifdef DEBUG
#define _D if (1)
#else
#define _D if (0)
#endif
char **str_split(char[], char, int*);
int count_char(char[], char);
int main(void) {
int num_strings = 0;
char **result = str_split("Helo_World_poopy_pants", '_', &num_strings);
if (result == NULL) {
printf("result is NULL\n");
return 0;
}
if (num_strings > 0) {
for (int i = 0; i < num_strings; i++) {
printf("\"%s\" \n", result[i]);
}
}
free(result);
return 0;
}
char **str_split(char string[], char delim, int *num_strings) {
int num_delim = count_char(string, delim);
*num_strings = num_delim + 1;
if (*num_strings < 2) {
return NULL;
}
//return value
char **ret = malloc((*num_strings) * sizeof(char*));
if (ret == NULL) {
_D printf("ret is null.\n");
return NULL;
}
int slen = strlen(string);
char buffer[slen];
/* b is the buffer index, c is the index for **ret */
int b = 0, c = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < slen + 1; i++) {
char cur = string[i];
if (cur == delim || cur == '\0') {
_D printf("Copying content of buffer to ret[%i]\n", c);
//char *tmp = malloc(sizeof(char) * slen + 1);
//strcpy(tmp, buffer);
//ret[c] = tmp;
ret[c] = buffer;
_D printf("Content of ret[%i] = \"%s\" \n", c, ret[c]);
//free(tmp);
c++;
b = 0;
continue;
}
//otherwise
_D printf("{%i} Copying char[%c] to index [%i] of buffer\n", c, cur, b);
buffer[b] = cur;
buffer[b+1] = '\0'; /* extend the null char */
b++;
_D printf("Buffer is now equal to: \"%s\"\n", buffer);
}
return ret;
}
int count_char(char base[], char c) {
int count = 0;
int i = 0;
while (base[i] != '\0') {
if (base[i++] == c) {
count++;
}
}
_D printf("Found %i occurence(s) of '%c'\n", count, c);
return count;
}
You are storing pointers to a buffer that exists on the stack. Using those pointers after returning from the function results in undefined behavior.
To get around this requires one of the following:
Allow the function to modify the input string (i.e. replace delimiters with null-terminator characters) and return pointers into it. The caller must be aware that this can happen. Note that supplying a string literal as you are doing here is illegal in C, so you would instead need to do:
char my_string[] = "Helo_World_poopy_pants";
char **result = str_split(my_string, '_', &num_strings);
In this case, the function should also make it clear that a string literal is not acceptable input, and define its first parameter as const char* string (instead of char string[]).
Allow the function to make a copy of the string and then modify the copy. You have expressed concerns about leaking this memory, but that concern is mostly to do with your program's design rather than a necessity.
It's perfectly valid to duplicate each string individually and then clean them all up later. The main issue is that it's inconvenient, and also slightly pointless.
Let's address the second point. You have several options, but if you insist that the result be easily cleaned-up with a call to free, then try this strategy:
When you allocate the pointer array, also make it large enough to hold a copy of the string:
// Allocate storage for `num_strings` pointers, plus a copy of the original string,
// then copy the string into memory immediately following the pointer storage.
char **ret = malloc((*num_strings) * sizeof(char*) + strlen(string) + 1);
char *buffer = (char*)&ret[*num_strings];
strcpy(buffer, string);
Now, do all your string operations on buffer. For example:
// Extract all delimited substrings. Here, buffer will always point at the
// current substring, and p will search for the delimiter. Once found,
// the substring is terminated, its pointer appended to the substring array,
// and then buffer is pointed at the next substring, if any.
int c = 0;
for(char *p = buffer; *buffer; ++p)
{
if (*p == delim || !*p) {
char *next = p;
if (*p) {
*p = '\0';
++next;
}
ret[c++] = buffer;
buffer = next;
}
}
When you need to clean up, it's just a single call to free, because everything was stored together.
The string pointers you store into the res with ret[c] = buffer; array point to an automatic array that goes out of scope when the function returns. The code subsequently has undefined behavior. You should allocate these strings with strdup().
Note also that it might not be appropriate to return NULL when the string does not contain a separator. Why not return an array with a single string?
Here is a simpler implementation:
#include <stdlib.h>
char **str_split(const char *string, char delim, int *num_strings) {
int i, n, from, to;
char **res;
for (n = 1, i = 0; string[i]; i++)
n += (string[i] == delim);
*num_strings = 0;
res = malloc(sizeof(*res) * n);
if (res == NULL)
return NULL;
for (i = from = to = 0;; from = to + 1) {
for (to = from; string[to] != delim && string[to] != '\0'; to++)
continue;
res[i] = malloc(to - from + 1);
if (res[i] == NULL) {
/* allocation failure: free memory allocated so far */
while (i > 0)
free(res[--i]);
free(res);
return NULL;
}
memcpy(res[i], string + from, to - from);
res[i][to - from] = '\0';
i++;
if (string[to] == '\0')
break;
}
*num_strings = n;
return res;
}

Substrings in the middle of a String in C

I need to extract substrings that are between Strings I know.
I have something like char string = "abcdefg";
I know what I need is between "c" and "f", then my return should be "de".
I know the strncpy() function but do not know how to apply it in the middle of a string.
Thank you.
Here's a full, working example:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void) {
char string[] = "abcdefg";
char from[] = "c";
char to[] = "f";
char *first = strstr(string, from);
if (first == NULL) {
first = &string[0];
} else {
first += strlen(from);
}
char *last = strstr(first, to);
if (last == NULL) {
last = &string[strlen(string)];
}
char *sub = calloc(strlen(string) + 1, sizeof(char));
strncpy(sub, first, last - first);
printf("%s\n", sub);
free(sub);
return 0;
}
You can check it at this ideone.
Now, the explanation:
1.
char string[] = "abcdefg";
char from[] = "c";
char to[] = "f";
Declarations of strings: main string to be checked, beginning delimiter, ending delimiter. Note these are arrays as well, so from and to could be, for example, cd and fg, respectively.
2.
char *first = strstr(string, from);
Find occurence of the beginning delimiter in the main string. Note that it finds the first occurence - if you need to find the last one (for example, if you had the string abcabc, and you wanted a substring from the second a), it might need to be different.
3.
if (first == NULL) {
first = &string[0];
} else {
first += strlen(from);
}
Handle situation, in which the first delimiter doesn't appear in the string. In such a case, we will make a substring from the beginning of the entire string. If it does appear, however, we move the pointer by length of from string, as we need to extract the substring beginning after the first delimiter (correction thanks to #dau_sama).
Depending on your specifications, this may or may not be needed, or another result might be expected.
4.
char *last = strstr(first, to);
Find occurence of the ending delimiter in the main string. Note that it finds the first occurence.
As noted by #dau_sama, it's better to search for ending delimiter from the first, not from beginning of the entire string. This prevents situations, in which to would appear earlier than from.
5.
if (last == NULL) {
last = &string[strlen(string)];
}
Handle situation, in which the second delimiter doesn't appear in the string. In such a case, we will make a substring until end of the string, so we get a pointer to the last character.
Again, depending on your specifications, this may or may not be needed, or another result might be expected.
6.
char *sub = calloc(last - first + 1, sizeof(char));
strncpy(sub, first, last - first);
Allocate sufficient memory and extract substring based on pointers found earlier. We copy last - first (length of the substring) characters beginning from first character.
7.
printf("%s\n", sub);
Here's the result.
I hope it does present the problem with enough details. Depending on your exact specifications, you may need to alter this somehow. For example, if you needed to find all substrings, and not just the first one, you may want to make a loop for finding first and last.
TY guys, worked using the form below:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
char *between_substring(char *str, char from, char to){
while(*str && *str != from)
++str;//skip
if(*str == '\0')
return NULL;
else
++str;
char *ret = malloc(strlen(str)+1);
char *p = ret;
while(*str && *str != to){
*p++ = *str++;//To the end if `to` do not exist
}
*p = 0;
return ret;
}
int main (void){
char source[] = "abcdefg";
char *target;
target = between(source, 'c', 'f');
printf("%s", source);
printf("%s", target);
return 0;
}
Since people seemed to not understand my approach in the comments, here's a quick hacked together stub.
const char* string = "abcdefg";
const char* b = "c";
const char* e = "f";
//look for the first pattern
const char* begin = strstr(string, b);
if(!begin)
return NULL;
//look for the end pattern
const char* end = strstr(begin, e);
if(!end)
return NULL;
end -= strlen(e);
char result[MAXLENGTH];
strncpy(result, begin, end-begin);
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
char *between(const char *str, char from, char to){
while(*str && *str != from)
++str;//skip
if(*str == '\0')
return NULL;
else
++str;
char *ret = malloc(strlen(str)+1);
char *p = ret;
while(*str && *str != to){
*p++ = *str++;//To the end if `to` do not exist
}
*p = 0;
return ret;
}
int main(void){
const char* string = "abcdefg";
char *substr = between(string, 'c', 'f');
if(substr!=NULL){
puts(substr);
free(substr);
}
return 0;
}

Recursive C String replace

I'm quite new to C programming, used to only use C++ with the String class, but I'm wondering how I would go about doing a recursive replacement of a string with another string.
My code is like this, but it doesn't seem to work correctly and I cannot quite pin down where it fails. It works fine on one replacement, but more than one and it fails.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char *replace_str(char *str, char *orig, char *rep)
{
int current_index = 0;
static char buffer[10000];
if (!strstr(str, orig)) // Is 'orig' even in 'str'?
{
return str;
}
while (1)
{
char *p;
if (!(p = strstr(str + current_index, orig))) // Is 'orig' even in 'str'?
{
return buffer;
}
strncpy(buffer, str, p-str); // Copy characters from 'str' start to 'orig' st$
buffer[p-str] = '\0';
sprintf(buffer+(p-str), "%s%s", rep, p+strlen(orig));
printf("%d -> %s\n", current_index, buffer);
current_index = (p - str) + strlen(rep);
str = buffer;
}
return buffer;
}
int main(void)
{
puts(replace_str("hello world world", "world", "world2"));
return 0;
}
With this example, it prints this:
0 -> hello world2 world
12 -> hello world2 world22
hello world2 world22
It could be not the best implementation, but here you find a stringReplace function that does the task.
About your code. First, it is better the caller supplies its dest buffer instead of having a static buffer into the function. Then, you do not check for buffer overflow.
Your
strncpy(buffer, str, p-str); // Copy characters from 'str' start to 'orig' st$
will copy from A to A except in the first iteration. This is not good, the buffer shouldn't overlap. Use memmove instead.
But the whole idea is not clean since you update the same buffer you use as source to catch other occurrences.
At some point you overwrite the input (when str and buffer points to the same thing) loosing information since your replacing word is longer than the original to be replaced so you do not preserve the "original next character". (If you try with "work" instead of "world2", it should work)...
So your current_index should index the original string str (and you'll never do str = buffer), and you will append to your internal buffer the part you need (up to an occurence of "world" if found then append "world2", update current_index by the length of "world" and go on).
I would do (trying to keep you original idea, more or less)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char *replace_str(char *str, const char *orig, const char *rep)
{
size_t buf_index = 0;
static char buffer[10000];
if (!strstr(str, orig)) // Is 'orig' even in 'str'?
{
return str;
}
buffer[0] = 0;
for(;;)
{
char *p;
if (!(p = strstr(str, orig)))
{
strcpy(buffer + buf_index, str);
return buffer;
}
strncpy(buffer + buf_index, str, p - str);
strcpy(buffer + buf_index + (p - str), rep);
buf_index += (p-str) + strlen(rep);
str = p + strlen(orig);
}
return buffer;
}
int main(void)
{
puts(replace_str("hello world world world", "wor", "world2"));
return 0;
}
The problem is str = buffer; . You are effectively changing the source pointer, and that screwing up your code.
Use the below code before the start of the while loop
char bk[100]
strcpy(bk,str);
and replace all str occurrences in the while loop with bk.It will work.
use this recursive function rplcStr (), it's coded as simple replace c++.
string rplcStr(string x, string y, string z){
// Done by Raafat Maurice in 29 Feb 2012
// this function will replace all string (y) found in string (x) by the string (z).
if (x.find(y.c_str(),0) != -1 ) {
return (rplcStr (x.substr(0, x.find(y.c_str(),0) ) + z + x.substr( x.find(y.c_str(),0) + y.size() ) ,y,z));
}
else {
return (x);
}
}

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