NAME¶
strcpy, strncpy - copy a string
SYNOPSIS¶
#include <string.h>
char *strcpy(char *dest, const char *src);
char *strncpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n);
DESCRIPTION¶
The
strcpy() function copies the string pointed to be
src
(including the terminating `\0' character) to the array pointed to by
dest. The strings may not overlap, and the destination string
dest must be large enough to receive the copy.
The
strncpy() function is similar, except that not more than
n
bytes of
src are copied. Thus, if there is no null byte among the first
n bytes of
src, the result wil not be null-terminated.
In the case where the length of
src is less than that of
n, the
remainder of
dest will be padded with nulls.
RETURN VALUE¶
The
strcpy() and
strncpy() functions return a pointer to the
destination string
dest.
BUGS¶
If the destination string of a
strcpy() is not large enough (that is, if
the programmer was stupid/lazy, and failed to check the size before copying)
then anything might happen. Overflowing fixed length strings is a favourite
cracker technique.
SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3, ISO 9899
SEE ALSO¶
bcopy(3),
memccpy(3),
memcpy(3),
memmove(3)