# strpbrk

From cppreference.com
< c‎ | string‎ | byte

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

### See also

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)
strtok strtok_s (C11) | finds the next token in a byte string (function)

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