LibUCW contains a rich set of functions for manipulating strings.

So far, only a small subset is documented.

ucw/string.h


char *str_format_flags(char *dest, const char *fmt, uint flags);

Format a set of flag bits. When the i-th bit of flags is 1, set the i-th character of dest to fmt[i], otherwise to -.


size_t str_count_char(const char *str, uint chr);

Counts occurrences of chr in str.


char *str_unesc(char *dest, const char *src);

Decode a string with backslash escape sequences as in C99 strings. It is safe to pass dest equal to src.


int str_sepsplit(char *str, uint sep, char **rec, uint max);

Split str to at most max fields separated by sep. Occurrences of the separator are rewritten to string terminators, rec[i] is set to point to the i-th field. The total number of fields is returned.

When there are more than max fields in str, the first max fields are processed and -1 is returned.


int str_wordsplit(char *str, char **rec, uint max);

Split str to words separated by white-space characters. The spaces are replaced by string terminators, rec[i] is set to point to the i-th field. The total number of fields is returned.

When there are more than max fields in str, the first max fields are processed and -1 is returned.

Fields surrounded by double quotes are also recognized. They can contain spaces, but no mechanism for escaping embedded quotes is defined.


int str_match_pattern(const char *patt, const char *str);

Test whether the string str matches the shell-like pattern patt. Only "*" and "?" meta-characters are supported.


int str_match_pattern_nocase(const char *patt, const char *str);

A case-insensitive version of str_match_pattern().


void mem_to_hex(char *dest, const byte *src, size_t bytes, uint flags);

Create a hexdump of a memory block of bytes bytes starting at src. The flags contain an optional separator of bytes (0 if bytes should not be separated), possibly OR-ed with MEM_TO_HEX_UPCASE when upper-case characters should be used.


const char *hex_to_mem(byte *dest, const char *src, size_t max_bytes, uint flags);

An inverse function to mem_to_hex(). Takes a hexdump of at most max_bytes bytes and stores the bytes to a buffer starting at dest. Returns a pointer at the first character after the dump.


int str_has_prefix(const char *str, const char *prefix);

Tests if str starts with prefix.


int str_has_suffix(const char *str, const char *suffix);

Tests if str ends with suffix.


int str_hier_prefix(const char *str, const char *prefix, uint sep);

Let str and prefix be hierarchical names with components separated by a character sep. Returns true if str starts with prefix, respecting component boundaries.

For example, when sep is / and str is "/usr/local/bin", then:

  • "/usr/local" is a prefix

  • "/usr/local/" is a prefix, too

  • "/usr/loc" is not,

  • "/usr/local/bin" is a prefix,

  • "/usr/local/bin/" is not,

  • "/" is a prefix,

  • "" is a prefix.


int str_hier_suffix(const char *str, const char *suffix, uint sep);

Like str_hier_prefix(), but for suffixes.