Parses a string into seprate arguments similar to those recieved by main( int argc, char **argv );

parse-args.c

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

// strdup isn't 'standard'.

//extern char *strdup(char*);
/*
 * usage:  
 *   function f( char *argString ) {
 *      int argc;
 *      char **argv;
 *      ParseIntoArgs( argString, &argc, &argv );
 *   }
 *
 */


void ParseIntoArgs( char *lpCmdLine, int *pArgc, char ***pArgv )
{
	char *args = lpCmdLine;
	char  *p;
	char **pp;
	char **argv; // result variable, pp is a temp pointer
	char quote = 0;
	int escape = 0;
	int count = 0;
	int lastchar;
	lastchar = ' '; // auto continue spaces...
	p = args;
	while( p && p[0] )
	{
		if( escape ) {
			if( p[0] == '\"' || p[0] == '\'' ) {
				escape = 0;
            count++;
			}
			else {
				escape = 0;
            count += 2;
			}
		}
		else if( p[0] == '\\' ) {
			escape = 1;
			count++;
		}
		else if( quote )
		{
			if( p[0] == quote )
			{
				count++;
				quote = 0;
				lastchar = ' ';
			}
		}
		else
		{
			if( p[0] == '\"' || p[0] == '\'' )
				quote = p[0];
			else
			{
				if( lastchar != ' ' && p[0] == ' ' ) // and there's a space
				{
					count++;
				}
				else if( lastchar == ' ' && p[0] != ' ' )
				{
				}
			}
			lastchar = p[0] ;
		}
		p++;
	}
	if( quote )
		count++; // complete this argument
	else if( p != args )
		count++;
	if( count )
	{
		char *start;
		lastchar = ' '; // auto continue spaces...
		pp = argv = (char**)malloc( sizeof( char* )  *(  count + 2 ) );
		p = args;
		quote = 0;
		count = 0;
		start = NULL;
		while( p[0] )
		{
			if( escape ) {
				escape = 0;
			}
			else if( p[0] == '\\' ) {
				escape = 1;
			}
			else if( quote )
			{
				if( !escape ) {
					if( !start )
						start = p;

					if( p[0] == quote )
					{
						p[0] = 0;
						pp[count++] = strdup( start );
						p[0] = quote;
						quote = 0;
						start = NULL;
						lastchar = ' ';
					}
				}
			}
			else
			{
				if( !escape ) {
					if( p[0] == '\"' || p[0] == '\'' )
						quote = p[0];
					else
					{
						if( lastchar != ' ' && p[0] == ' ' ) // and there's a space
						{
							p[0] = 0;
							pp[count++] = strdup( start );
							start = NULL;
							p[0] = ' ';
						}
						else if( lastchar == ' ' && p[0] != ' ' )
						{
							if( !start )
								start = p;
						}
					}
					lastchar = p[0] ;
				}
			}
			p++;
		}
		if( start )
			pp[count++] = strdup( start );
		pp[count] = NULL;
		if( pArgc )
			(*pArgc) = count;
		if( pArgv )
			(*pArgv) = argv;
	}
	else
	{
		if( pArgc )
			(*pArgc) = 0;
		if( pArgv )
		{
			(*pArgv) = malloc( sizeof( char* ) * 1 );
			(*pArgv)[0] = NULL;
		}
	}
}


/*
 * Test code
 *
int main(void) {
	// your code goes here
	int argc;
	char **argv;
	char args[] = "Pass -a Some \"arguments with \" words";
	ParseIntoArgs( args, &argc, &argv );
	{
		int n = 0;
		while( argv[n] ) {
			puts( argv[n++] );
		}
	}
	return 0;
}

*/