STRNCMP(3P)

PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
strncmp — compare part of two strings

SYNOPSIS

#include <string.h>

int strncmp(const char *s1, const char *s2, size_t n);

DESCRIPTION
The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of POSIX.1-2017 defers to the ISO C standard.

The strncmp() function shall compare not more than n bytes (bytes that follow a NUL character are not compared) from the array pointed to by s1 to the array pointed to by s2.

The sign of a non-zero return value is determined by the sign of the difference between the values of the first pair of bytes (both interpreted as type unsigned char) that differ in the strings being compared.

RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, strncmp() shall return an integer greater than, equal to, or less than 0, if the possibly null-terminated array pointed to by s1 is greater than, equal to, or less than the possibly null-terminated array pointed to by s2 respectively.

ERRORS
No errors are defined.

The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES
None.

APPLICATION USAGE
None.

RATIONALE
None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.

SEE ALSO
strcmp()

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, <string.h>

COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .