Strncpy

Syntax

char * strncpy ( char * destination, const char * source, size_t num );

Description

Copies the first num characters of source to destination. If the end of the source C string (which is signaled by a null-character) is found before num characters have been copied, destination is padded with zeros until a total of num characters have been written to it.

No null-character is implicitly appended at the end of destination if source is longer than num. Thus, in this case, destination shall not be considered a null terminated C string (reading it as such would overflow).

destination and source shall not overlap (see memmove for a safer alternative when overlapping).

Arguments

destination

Pointer to the destination array where the content is to be copied.

source

C string to be copied.

num

Maximum number of characters to be copied from source.

size_t is an unsigned integral type.

Return value

destination is returned.

Example

/* strncpy example */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main ()
{
  char str1[]= "To be or not to be";
  char str2[40];
  char str3[40];

  /* copy to sized buffer (overflow safe): */
  strncpy ( str2, str1, sizeof(str2) );

  /* partial copy (only 5 chars): */
  strncpy ( str3, str2, 5 );
  str3[5] = '\0';   /* null character manually added */

  puts (str1);
  puts (str2);
  puts (str3);

  return 0;
}

Will output:

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be