'\" t .\" Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk) .\" .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft .\" .\" References consulted: .\" Linux libc source code .\" Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991) .\" 386BSD man pages .\" Modified Sat Jul 24 18:02:26 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu) .TH strlen 3 2023-10-31 "Linux man-pages 6.7" .SH NAME strlen \- calculate the length of a string .SH LIBRARY Standard C library .RI ( libc ", " \-lc ) .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .B #include .P .BI "size_t strlen(const char *" s ); .fi .SH DESCRIPTION The .BR strlen () function calculates the length of the string pointed to by .IR s , excluding the terminating null byte (\[aq]\e0\[aq]). .SH RETURN VALUE The .BR strlen () function returns the number of bytes in the string pointed to by .IR s . .SH ATTRIBUTES For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see .BR attributes (7). .TS allbox; lbx lb lb l l l. Interface Attribute Value T{ .na .nh .BR strlen () T} Thread safety MT-Safe .TE .SH STANDARDS C11, POSIX.1-2008. .SH HISTORY POSIX.1-2001, C89, SVr4, 4.3BSD. .SH NOTES In cases where the input buffer may not contain a terminating null byte, .BR strnlen (3) should be used instead. .SH SEE ALSO .BR string (3), .BR strnlen (3), .BR wcslen (3), .BR wcsnlen (3)