strtok (MATLAB Functions)

Return selected parts of string

Syntax

token = strtok('str')
token = strtok('str', delimiter)
[token, rem] = strtok(...)

Description

token = strtok('str') uses the default delimiters, the white-space characters. These include tabs (ASCII 9), carriage returns (ASCII 13), and spaces (ASCII 32). Any leading white-space characters are ignored. If str is a cell array of strings, token is a cell array of tokens.

token = strtok('str', delimiter) returns the first token in the text string str, that is, the first set of characters before a delimiter is encountered. The vector delimiter contains valid delimiter characters. Any leading delimiters are ignored. If str is a cell array of strings, token is a cell array of tokens.

[token, rem] = strtok(...) returns the remainder rem of the original string. The remainder consists of all characters from the first delimiter on. If str is a cell array of strings, token is a cell array of tokens, and rem is a character array.

Examples

Example 1

This example uses the default white-space delimiter:

s = '  This is a simple example.';
[token, rem] = strtok(s)
token =
   This
rem =
   is a simple example.

Example 2

Take a string of HTML code and break it down into segments delimited by the < and > characters. Write a while loop to parse the string and print each segment:

s = sprintf('%s%s%s', ...
'<ul class=continued><li class=continued><pre>', ...
'<a name="13474"></a>token = strtok(''str'', delimiter)', ...
'<a name="13475"></a>token = strtok(''str'')');

rem = s;

while true
   [str, rem] = strtok(rem, '<>');
   if isempty(str),  break;  end
   disp(sprintf('%s', str))
   end

Here is the output:

ul class=continued
li class=continued
pre
a name="13474"
/a
token = strtok('str', delimiter)
a name="13475"
/a
token = strtok('str')

Example 3

Using strtok on a cell array of strings returns a cell array of strings in token and a character array in rem:

s = {'all in good time'; ...
     'my dog has fleas'; ...
     'leave no stone unturned'};

rem = s;

for k = 1:4
   [token, rem] = strtok(rem);
   token
   end

Here is the output:

token = 
    'all'
    'my'
    'leave'
token = 
    'in'
    'dog'
    'no'
token = 
    'good'
    'has'
    'stone'
token = 
    'time'
    'fleas'
    'unturned'

See Also

findstr, strmatch

strrep strtrim