How Do I Iterate Over the Words of a String?

In C++, strings are character sequences stored in a char array. It may contain text in the form of multiple words representing a sentence. In this article, we will learn how we can iterate over the words of a string in C++.

Example:

Input:
myString ="Geek for Geeks"

Output:
Geek
for  
Geeks

Iterate Over the Words of a String in C++

In C++, one of the most simple ways to iterate over the words of a string is using the std::stringstreams. The stringstream creates a stream to the given string. Then we can use cin to iterate word after word as it by default takes the input string till the white space is encountered.

C++ Program to Iterate Over the Words of a String

C++

// C++ program to Iterate Over the Words of a String
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    // declare a string of words
    string S = "Geek for Geeks ";
    // Initialzie the string stream
    stringstream ss(S);

    string word;

    // access each word of the string in the form of tokens
    // and print it

    while (ss >> word) {
        cout << word << endl;
    }

    return 0;
}

Output

Geek
for
Geeks

Time Complexity: O(N) where N is the length of the string.
Space Complexity: O(K) where K is the length of the longest word in the string.

Note: In this program, it is assumed that the words are seperated by a whitespace. If the words are also seperated by a coma or any other character, then we will have to consider it also. Refer to this article for more information.