.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 The Regents of the University of California. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by .\" Chris Torek and the American National Standards Committee X3, .\" on Information Processing Systems. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $OpenBSD: strcpy.3,v 1.9 1999/06/29 18:01:33 aaron Exp $ .\" .Dd June 29, 1991 .Dt STRCPY 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm strcpy , .Nm strncpy .Nd copy strings .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include .Ft char * .Fn strcpy "char *dst" "const char *src" .Ft char * .Fn strncpy "char *dst" "const char *src" "size_t len" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn strcpy and .Fn strncpy functions copy the string .Fa src to .Fa dst (including the terminating .Ql \e0 character). .Pp .Fn strncpy copies not more than .Fa len characters into .Fa dst , appending .Ql \e0 characters if .Fa src is less than .Fa len characters long, and .Em not terminating .Fa dst if .Fa src is more than .Fa len characters long. .Sh RETURN VALUES The .Fn strcpy and .Fn strncpy functions return .Fa dst . .Sh EXAMPLES The following sets .Va chararray to .Dq abc\e0\e0\e0 : .Bd -literal -offset indent (void)strncpy(chararray, "abc", 6); .Ed .Pp The following sets .Va chararray to .Dq abcdef and does .Em not null terminate .Va chararray because the source string is >= the length parameter. .Fn strncpy .Em only null terminates the destination string when then length of the source string is less than the length parameter. .Bd -literal -offset indent (void)strncpy(chararray, "abcdefgh", 6); .Ed .Pp The following copies as many characters from .Va input to .Va buf as will fit and null terminates the result. Because .Fn strncpy does .Em not guarantee to null terminate the string itself, we must do this by hand. .Bd -literal -offset indent char buf[BUFSIZ]; (void)strncpy(buf, input, sizeof(buf) - 1); buf[sizeof(buf) - 1] = '\e0'; .Ed .Pp Note that .Xr strlcpy 3 is a better choice for this kind of operation. The equivalent using .Xr strlcpy 3 is simply: .Bd -literal -offset indent (void)strlcpy(buf, input, sizeof(buf)); .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr bcopy 3 , .Xr memccpy 3 , .Xr memcpy 3 , .Xr memmove 3 , .Xr strlcpy 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn strcpy and .Fn strncpy functions conform to .St -ansiC .