Path string from std::vector`

Question

I have a vector of char which looks something like

C:/Users/person/Desktop/Albedo.pngC:/Users/person/Desktop/Metallic.pngC:/Users/person/Desktop/Noice.pngC:/Users/person/Desktop/AO.png

How do I split the vector to individual paths? That is, I want to have

std::string path1; // = C:/Users/person/Desktop/Albedo.png;
std::string path2; // = C:/Users/person/Desktop/Metallic.png;
std::string path3; // = C:/Users/person/Desktop/Noice.png;
std::string path4; // = C:/Users/person/Desktop/AO.png;

Any idea how can I do that? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

For example a straightforward approach provided that each path in the vector has the extension .png can look for example the following way as it is shown in the demonstrative program below.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>
#include <cstring>

int main() 
{
    const char *s ="C:/Users/person/Desktop/Albedo.png"
                   "C:/Users/person/Desktop/Metallic.png"
                   "C:/Users/person/Desktop/Noice.png"
                   "C:/Users/person/Desktop/AO.png";
    std::vector<char> v( s, s + std::strlen( s ) );
    
    std::vector<std::string> paths;
    const char *ext = ".png";
    size_t n = std::strlen( ext );
    
    for ( auto first = std::begin( v ), last = std::end( v ), it = first;
          ( it = std::search( first, last, ext, ext + n ) ) != last;
          first = it
        )
    {
        std::advance( it, n );
        paths.push_back( { first, it } );
    }         
    
    for ( const auto &path : paths )
    {
        std::cout << path << '\n';
    }
    
    return 0;
}

The program output is

C:/Users/person/Desktop/Albedo.png
C:/Users/person/Desktop/Metallic.png
C:/Users/person/Desktop/Noice.png
C:/Users/person/Desktop/AO.png