Parse (split) a string in C++ using string delimiter (standard C++)

This method uses std::string::find without mutating the original string by remembering the beginning and end of the previous substring token.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    std::string s = "scott>=tiger";
    std::string delim = ">=";

    auto start = 0U;
    auto end = s.find(delim);
    while (end != std::string::npos)
    {
        std::cout << s.substr(start, end - start) << std::endl;
        start = end + delim.length();
        end = s.find(delim, start);
    }

    std::cout << s.substr(start, end);
}

You can use the std::string::find() function to find the position of your string delimiter, then use std::string::substr() to get a token.

Example:

std::string s = "scott>=tiger";
std::string delimiter = ">=";
std::string token = s.substr(0, s.find(delimiter)); // token is "scott"

• The find(const string& str, size_t pos = 0) function returns the position of the first occurrence of str in the string, or npos if the string is not found.

• The substr(size_t pos = 0, size_t n = npos) function returns a substring of the object, starting at position pos and of length npos.

---

If you have multiple delimiters, after you have extracted one token, you can remove it (delimiter included) to proceed with subsequent extractions (if you want to preserve the original string, just use s = s.substr(pos + delimiter.length());):

s.erase(0, s.find(delimiter) + delimiter.length());

This way you can easily loop to get each token.

Complete Example

std::string s = "scott>=tiger>=mushroom";
std::string delimiter = ">=";

size_t pos = 0;
std::string token;
while ((pos = s.find(delimiter)) != std::string::npos) {
    token = s.substr(0, pos);
    std::cout << token << std::endl;
    s.erase(0, pos + delimiter.length());
}
std::cout << s << std::endl;

Output:

scott
tiger
mushroom