Name
strncat - concatenate a null-padded character sequence into a stringLibrary
Standard C library ( libc ", " -lc )Synopsis
#include <string.h> char *strncat(char *restrict " dst ", const char " src "[restrict . sz ],
size_t sz );
Description
This function catenates the input character sequence contained in a null-padded fixed-width buffer, into a string at the buffer pointed to bydst
. The programmer is responsible for allocating a destination buffer large enough, that is, "strlen(dst) + strnlen(src, sz) + 1"
. An implementation of this function might be:
char * strncat(char *restrict dst, const char *restrict src, size_t sz) { int len; char *p; len = strnlen(src, sz); p = dst + strlen(dst); p = mempcpy(p, src, len); *p = '\e0'; return dst; }
Return Value
strncat() returnsdst
. Attributes
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).Interface | Attribute | Value |
T} | Thread safety | MT-Safe |
Standards
C11, POSIX.1-2008.History
POSIX.1-2001, C89, SVr4, 4.3BSD.Caveats
The name of this function is confusing. This function has no relation to strncpy(3).If the destination buffer is not large enough, the behavior is undefined. See _FORTIFY_SOURCE in feature_test_macros(7).
Bugs
This function can be very inefficient. Read about Shlemiel the painterExamples
#include <err.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #define nitems(arr) (sizeof((arr)) / sizeof((arr)[0])) int main(void) { size_t maxsize; // Null-padded fixed-width character sequences char pre[4] = "pre."; char new_post[50] = ".foo.bar"; // Strings char post[] = ".post"; char src[] = "some_long_body.post"; char *dest; maxsize = nitems(pre) + strlen(src) - strlen(post) + nitems(new_post) + 1; dest = malloc(sizeof(*dest) * maxsize); if (dest == NULL) err(EXIT_FAILURE, "malloc()"); dest[0] = '\e0'; // There's no 'cpy' function to this 'cat'. strncat(dest, pre, nitems(pre)); strncat(dest, src, strlen(src) - strlen(post)); strncat(dest, new_post, nitems(new_post)); puts(dest); // "pre.some_long_body.foo.bar" free(dest); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); }
See Also
- string(3),
- string_copying(3)