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.\" 4. 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: src/lib/libc/string/strcmp.3,v 1.11 2007/01/09 00:28:12 imp Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/string/strcmp.3,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:46 dillon Exp $ 35.\" 36.Dd October 11, 2001 37.Dt STRCMP 3 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm strcmp , 41.Nm strncmp 42.Nd compare strings 43.Sh LIBRARY 44.Lb libc 45.Sh SYNOPSIS 46.In string.h 47.Ft int 48.Fn strcmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" 49.Ft int 50.Fn strncmp "const char *s1" "const char *s2" "size_t len" 51.Sh DESCRIPTION 52The 53.Fn strcmp 54and 55.Fn strncmp 56functions 57lexicographically compare the null-terminated strings 58.Fa s1 59and 60.Fa s2 . 61.Pp 62The 63.Fn strncmp 64function 65compares not more than 66.Fa len 67characters. 68Because 69.Fn strncmp 70is designed for comparing strings rather than binary data, 71characters that appear after a 72.Ql \e0 73character are not compared. 74.Sh RETURN VALUES 75The 76.Fn strcmp 77and 78.Fn strncmp 79return an integer greater than, equal to, or less than 0, according 80as the string 81.Fa s1 82is greater than, equal to, or less than the string 83.Fa s2 . 84The comparison is done using unsigned characters, so that 85.Ql \e200 86is greater than 87.Ql \e0 . 88.Sh SEE ALSO 89.Xr bcmp 3 , 90.Xr memcmp 3 , 91.Xr strcasecmp 3 , 92.Xr strcoll 3 , 93.Xr strxfrm 3 94.Sh STANDARDS 95The 96.Fn strcmp 97and 98.Fn strncmp 99functions 100conform to 101.St -isoC . 102