1<html lang="en"> 2<head> 3<title>strncmp - Untitled</title> 4<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> 5<meta name="description" content="Untitled"> 6<meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.13"> 7<link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> 8<link rel="up" href="Strings.html#Strings" title="Strings"> 9<link rel="prev" href="strncat.html#strncat" title="strncat"> 10<link rel="next" href="strncpy.html#strncpy" title="strncpy"> 11<link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> 12<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> 13<style type="text/css"><!-- 14 pre.display { font-family:inherit } 15 pre.format { font-family:inherit } 16 pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 17 pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 18 pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } 19 pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } 20 span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } 21 span.roman { font-family:serif; font-weight:normal; } 22 span.sansserif { font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal; } 23--></style> 24<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../cs.css"> 25</head> 26<body> 27<div class="node"> 28<a name="strncmp"></a> 29<p> 30Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="strncpy.html#strncpy">strncpy</a>, 31Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="strncat.html#strncat">strncat</a>, 32Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Strings.html#Strings">Strings</a> 33<hr> 34</div> 35 36<h3 class="section">5.30 <code>strncmp</code>—character string compare</h3> 37 38<p><a name="index-strncmp-398"></a><strong>Synopsis</strong> 39<pre class="example"> #include <string.h> 40 int strncmp(const char *<var>a</var>, const char * <var>b</var>, size_t <var>length</var>); 41 42</pre> 43 <p><strong>Description</strong><br> 44<code>strncmp</code> compares up to <var>length</var> characters 45from the string at <var>a</var> to the string at <var>b</var>. 46 47 <p><br> 48<strong>Returns</strong><br> 49If <code>*</code><var>a</var> sorts lexicographically after <code>*</code><var>b</var>, 50<code>strncmp</code> returns a number greater than zero. If the two 51strings are equivalent, <code>strncmp</code> returns zero. If <code>*</code><var>a</var> 52sorts lexicographically before <code>*</code><var>b</var>, <code>strncmp</code> returns a 53number less than zero. 54 55 <p><br> 56<strong>Portability</strong><br> 57<code>strncmp</code> is ANSI C. 58 59 <p><code>strncmp</code> requires no supporting OS subroutines. 60 61 <p><br> 62 63 </body></html> 64 65