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PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface
may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
strlen, strnlen — get length of fixed size string
SYNOPSIS
#include <string.h> size_t strlen(const char *s); size_t strnlen(const char *s, size_t maxlen);
DESCRIPTION
For strlen(): The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any
conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of
POSIX.1‐2008 defers to the ISO C standard.
The strlen() function shall compute the number of bytes in the string to which s points, not including
the terminating NUL character.
The strnlen() function shall compute the smaller of the number of bytes in the array to which s points,
not including the terminating NUL character, or the value of the maxlen argument. The strnlen() function
shall never examine more than maxlen bytes of the array pointed to by s.
RETURN VALUE
The strlen() function shall return the length of s; no return value shall be reserved to indicate an
error.
The strnlen() function shall return an integer containing the smaller of either the length of the string
pointed to by s or maxlen.
ERRORS
No errors are defined.
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
Getting String Lengths
The following example sets the maximum length of key and data by using strlen() to get the lengths of
those strings.
#include <string.h>
...
struct element {
char *key;
char *data;
};
...
char *key, *data;
int len;
*keylength = *datalength = 0;
...
if ((len = strlen(key)) > *keylength)
*keylength = len;
if ((len = strlen(data)) > *datalength)
*datalength = len;
...
APPLICATION USAGE
None.
RATIONALE
None.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
wcslen()
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, <string.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc
and The Open Group. (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the event
of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced
during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .