how to efficiently parse a string in c

Question

I have:

char *str = "abc def  abcdef ghi   xyz";

I want to assign

const char *a = "abc"; 
const char *b = "def";
const char *c = "abcdef";
const char *d = "ghi";
const char *e = "xyz";

Key here is that number of spaces can be more than one.

Please suggest an efficient way.

Answer 1

Efficency is in the eye of the beholder. But take a look at strtok; however, you will need to work with a copy of the string that can be modified.

Note that char *str = "blah" is not a good idea. You should be using const char *str = "blah".