Clarify some of the corner cases of the split_string_list() function.

diff --git a/include/deal.II/base/utilities.h b/include/deal.II/base/utilities.h
index 52f0f25b62c534e253014545c100fdabffe5cd4a..7a45c412da4777f5e2868e5c7f7f49d9a62b86e2 100644 (file)
--- a/include/deal.II/base/utilities.h
+++ b/include/deal.II/base/utilities.h
@@ -113,10 +113,44 @@ namespace Utilities
   /**
    * Given a string that contains text separated by a @p delimiter, split it
    * into its components; for each component, remove leading and trailing
-   * spaces.
-   *
-   * The default value of the delimiter is a comma, so that the function
+   * spaces. The default value of the delimiter is a comma, so that the function
    * splits comma separated lists of strings.
+   *
+   * To make data input from tables simpler, if the input string ends in
+   * a delimiter (possibly followed by an arbitrary amount of whitespace),
+   * then this last delimiter is ignored. For example,
+   * @code
+   *   Utilities::split_string_list("abc; def; ghi; ", ';');
+   * @endcode
+   * yields the same 3-element list of output <code>{"abc","def","ghi"}</code>
+   * as you would get if the input had been
+   * @code
+   *   Utilities::split_string_list("abc; def; ghi", ';');
+   * @endcode
+   * or
+   * @code
+   *   Utilities::split_string_list("abc; def; ghi;", ';');
+   * @endcode
+   * As a consequence of this rule, a call like
+   * @code
+   *   Utilities::split_string_list(" ; ", ';');
+   * @endcode
+   * yields a one-element list. Because of the trimming of
+   * whitespace, the single element is the empty string.
+   *
+   * This function can digest the case that the delimiter is a space. In this
+   * case, it returns all words in the string. Combined with the rules above,
+   * this implies that
+   * @code
+   *   Utilities::split_string_list("abc def ghi ", ' ');
+   * @endcode
+   * yields again the 3-element list of output <code>{"abc","def","ghi"}</code>
+   * from above despite the presence of space at the end of the string.
+   * Furthermore,
+   * @code
+   *   Utilities::split_string_list("      ", ' ');
+   * @endcode
+   * yields an empty list regardless of the number of spaces in the string.
    */
   std::vector<std::string>
   split_string_list (const std::string &s,

diff --git a/source/base/utilities.cc b/source/base/utilities.cc
index d6cb0fb560c567b43d85b920f76f02200796077a..50551b4b8e4dd0a6a31131d794790b617a357825 100644 (file)
--- a/source/base/utilities.cc
+++ b/source/base/utilities.cc
@@ -197,11 +197,23 @@ namespace Utilities
   split_string_list (const std::string &s,
                      const char         delimiter)
   {
+    // keep the currently remaining part of the input string in 'tmp' and
+    // keep chopping elements of the list off the front
     std::string tmp = s;
+
+    // as discussed in the documentation, eat whitespace from the end
+    // of the string
+    while (tmp.length() != 0 && tmp[tmp.length()-1] == ' ')
+      tmp.erase (tmp.length()-1, 1);
+
+    // split the input list until it is empty. since in every iteration
+    // 'tmp' is what's left of the string after the next delimiter,
+    // and since we've stripped trailing space already, 'tmp' will
+    // be empty at one point if 's' ended in a delimiter, even if
+    // there was space after the last delimiter. this matches what's
+    // discussed in the documentation
     std::vector<std::string> split_list;
     split_list.reserve (std::count (tmp.begin(), tmp.end(), delimiter)+1);
-
-    // split the input list
     while (tmp.length() != 0)
       {
         std::string name;
@@ -215,10 +227,9 @@ namespace Utilities
         else
           tmp = "";
 
-        while ((name.length() != 0) &&
-               (name[0] == ' '))
+        // strip spaces from this element's front and end
+        while ((name.length() != 0) && (name[0] == ' '))
           name.erase (0,1);
-
         while (name.length() != 0 && name[name.length()-1] == ' ')
           name.erase (name.length()-1, 1);