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. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 17.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 18.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 19.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 20.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 21.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 22.\" without specific prior written permission. 23.\" 24.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 25.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 26.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 27.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 28.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 29.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 30.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 31.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 32.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 33.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 34.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 35.\" 36.\" @(#)strcmp.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 37.\" $FreeBSD$ 38.\" 39.Dd October 11, 2001 40.Dt STRCMP 3 41.Os 42.Sh NAME 43.Nm strcmp , 44.Nm strncmp 45.Nd compare strings 46.Sh LIBRARY 47.Lb libc 48.Sh SYNOPSIS 49.In string.h 50.Ft int 51.Fn strcmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" 52.Ft int 53.Fn strncmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" "size_t len" 54.Sh DESCRIPTION 55The 56.Fn strcmp 57and 58.Fn strncmp 59functions 60lexicographically compare the null-terminated strings 61.Fa s1 62and 63.Fa s2 . 64.Pp 65The 66.Fn strncmp 67function 68compares not more than 69.Fa len 70characters. 71Because 72.Fn strncmp 73is designed for comparing strings rather than binary data, 74characters that appear after a 75.Ql \e0 76character are not compared. 77.Sh RETURN VALUES 78The 79.Fn strcmp 80and 81.Fn strncmp 82return an integer greater than, equal to, or less than 0, according 83as the string 84.Fa s1 85is greater than, equal to, or less than the string 86.Fa s2 . 87The comparison is done using unsigned characters, so that 88.Ql \e200 89is greater than 90.Ql \e0 . 91.Sh SEE ALSO 92.Xr bcmp 3 , 93.Xr memcmp 3 , 94.Xr strcasecmp 3 , 95.Xr strcoll 3 , 96.Xr strxfrm 3 97.Sh STANDARDS 98The 99.Fn strcmp 100and 101.Fn strncmp 102functions 103conform to 104.St -isoC . 105