1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" Chris Torek and the American National Standards Committee X3, 6.\" on Information Processing Systems. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)strcmp.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd April 3, 2022 36.Dt STRCMP 3 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm strcmp , 40.Nm strncmp 41.Nd compare strings 42.Sh LIBRARY 43.Lb libc 44.Sh SYNOPSIS 45.In string.h 46.Ft int 47.Fn strcmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" 48.Ft int 49.Fn strncmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" "size_t len" 50.Sh DESCRIPTION 51The 52.Fn strcmp 53and 54.Fn strncmp 55functions 56lexicographically compare the null-terminated strings 57.Fa s1 58and 59.Fa s2 . 60.Pp 61The 62.Fn strncmp 63function 64compares not more than 65.Fa len 66characters. 67Because 68.Fn strncmp 69is designed for comparing strings rather than binary data, 70characters that appear after a 71.Ql \e0 72character are not compared. 73.Sh RETURN VALUES 74The 75.Fn strcmp 76and 77.Fn strncmp 78functions return an integer greater than, equal to, or less than 0, according 79as the string 80.Fa s1 81is greater than, equal to, or less than the string 82.Fa s2 . 83The comparison is done using unsigned characters, so that 84.Ql \e200 85is greater than 86.Ql \e0 . 87.Sh SEE ALSO 88.Xr bcmp 3 , 89.Xr memcmp 3 , 90.Xr strcasecmp 3 , 91.Xr strcoll 3 , 92.Xr strxfrm 3 , 93.Xr wcscmp 3 94.Sh STANDARDS 95The 96.Fn strcmp 97and 98.Fn strncmp 99functions 100conform to 101.St -isoC . 102.Sh HISTORY 103The 104.Fn strcmp 105function first appeared in the Programmer's Workbench (PWB/UNIX) 106and was ported to 107.At v7 ; 108.Fn strncmp 109first appeared in 110.At v7 . 111