STRCPY

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3 )
Updated: 1993-04-11
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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 by 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.

CONFORMING TO

SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3, ISO 9899

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