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: src/lib/libc/string/strcmp.3,v 1.6.2.3 2001/10/15 16:45:38 mike Exp $ 38.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/string/strcmp.3,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:46 dillon Exp $ 39.\" 40.Dd October 11, 2001 41.Dt STRCMP 3 42.Os 43.Sh NAME 44.Nm strcmp , 45.Nm strncmp 46.Nd compare strings 47.Sh LIBRARY 48.Lb libc 49.Sh SYNOPSIS 50.In string.h 51.Ft int 52.Fn strcmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" 53.Ft int 54.Fn strncmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" "size_t len" 55.Sh DESCRIPTION 56The 57.Fn strcmp 58and 59.Fn strncmp 60functions 61lexicographically compare the null-terminated strings 62.Fa s1 63and 64.Fa s2 . 65.Pp 66The 67.Fn strncmp 68function 69compares not more than 70.Fa len 71characters. 72Because 73.Fn strncmp 74is designed for comparing strings rather than binary data, 75characters that appear after a 76.Ql \e0 77character are not compared. 78.Sh RETURN VALUES 79The 80.Fn strcmp 81and 82.Fn strncmp 83return an integer greater than, equal to, or less than 0, according 84as the string 85.Fa s1 86is greater than, equal to, or less than the string 87.Fa s2 . 88The comparison is done using unsigned characters, so that 89.Ql \e200 90is greater than 91.Ql \e0 . 92.Sh SEE ALSO 93.Xr bcmp 3 , 94.Xr memcmp 3 , 95.Xr strcasecmp 3 , 96.Xr strcoll 3 , 97.Xr strxfrm 3 98.Sh STANDARDS 99The 100.Fn strcmp 101and 102.Fn strncmp 103functions 104conform to 105.St -isoC . 106