strpbrk

Defined in header `<string.h>`
char* strpbrk( const char* dest, const char* breakset );

Scans the null-terminated byte string pointed to by dest for any character from the null-terminated byte string pointed to by breakset, and returns a pointer to that character.

The behavior is undefined if either dest or breakset is not a pointer to a null-terminated byte string.

Parameters

dest	-	pointer to the null-terminated byte string to be analyzed
breakset	-	pointer to the null-terminated byte string that contains the characters to search for

Return value

Pointer to the first character in dest, that is also in breakset, or null pointer if no such character exists.

Notes

The name stands for "string pointer break", because it returns a pointer to the first of the separator ("break") characters.

Example

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void)
{
    const char* str = "hello world, friend of mine!";
    const char* sep = " ,!";

    unsigned int cnt = 0;
    do {
       str = strpbrk(str, sep); // find separator
       if(str) str += strspn(str, sep); // skip separator
       ++cnt; // increment word count
    } while(str && *str);

    printf("There are%u words\n", cnt);
}

Output:

There are 5 words

References

C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

7.24.5.4 The strpbrk function (p: 368)

C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

7.21.5.4 The strpbrk function (p: 331)

C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):

4.11.5.4 The strpbrk function

Language
Headers
Type support
Program utilities
Variadic function support
Error handling
Dynamic memory management
Date and time utilities
Strings library
Algorithms
Numerics
Input/output support
Localization support
Atomic operations (C11)
Thread support (C11)
Technical Specifications

strcspn	returns the length of the maximum initial segment that consists of only the characters not found in another byte string (function)
strchr	finds the first occurrence of a character (function)
strtokstrtok_s (C11)	finds the next token in a byte string (function)