How do you split a string of multiple words into single words

I have a string variable that holds the full name of someone (ex. string fullName = "John Smith";), how do I split that string and put the first and last name into separate string variables? I know to search for the space is a good way to start I'm just not sure how to go about doing this.

(ex. string fullName = "John Smith"; )***

I would put the string into an std::stringstream and use std::getline to extract words by specifying the delimiter as a space.

I know this is probably overkill but I wrote a little utility code a couple years ago that splits up an input string into a series of tokens (output as a vector of strings). It might be helpful to you:

Code:

---

#include <string>
#include <vector>

/**
* Splits a string up into a series of tokens (output as a string vector).
*
* @param        sourceStr        The string to split up.
*
* @param        delimiter        What to delimit the source string by.
*
* @param        ignoreEmpty    Whether or not to ignore empty tokens.
*                              (usually created by 2 or more immediately
*                              adjacent delimiters)
*
* @return        A string vector containing a series of ordered tokens.
*/
std::vector<std::string> split(const std::string &sourceStr,
                              const std::string &delimiter,
                              bool ignoreEmpty)
{
        std::vector<std::string> resultVector;

        size_t idxA = 0;
        size_t idxB = sourceStr.find(delimiter);
        std::string tempStr;
        bool done = false;

        while(!done)
        {
                if(idxB != std::string::npos)
                {
                        tempStr = sourceStr.substr(idxA, idxB-idxA);
                        idxA = idxB + delimiter.length();
                        idxB = sourceStr.find(delimiter, idxA);
                }
                else
                {
                        tempStr = sourceStr.substr(idxA);
                        done = true;
                }

                if(!(ignoreEmpty && tempStr.empty()))
                        resultVector.push_back(tempStr);
        }

        return resultVector;
}

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by mborba22

I know to search for the space is a good way to start I'm just not sure how to go about doing this.

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Use string::iterator for this. Here's an example usage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yarin

Use string::iterator for this.

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That is certainly feasible, but as demonstrated by ajs15822, std::string's own find functions are index based, as is substr. Elkvis' suggestion is probably the easiest to implement.

There is also Boost's string algorithms, which among others, contain a split function. Handy stuff. Something all programmers would benefit from.

it's already been said but use stringstreams:

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;


int main()
{
    string Token, ToParse("one two three four five");
    istringstream StrStream(ToParse);

    while (StrStream)
    {
        getline(StrStream, Token, ' ');
        cout << Token << endl;
    }

/*
    //Alternatively:
    while (StrStream >> Token)
    {
        cout << Token << endl;
    }
*/

    return 0;
}

---

Outputs:
one
two
three
four
five





Or you really could just do something like this:

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;


int main()
{
    string FullName("John Smith");
    string FirstName, LastName;
    istringstream StrStream(FullName);

    StrStream >> FirstName;
    StrStream >> LastName;

    cout << FirstName << endl;
    cout << LastName << endl;

    return 0;
}

---

FirstName and LastName will always be valid strings regardless of what FullName is