strncmp - Compare two strings

Definition	#include <string.h> int strncmp(const char *s1, const char *s2, size_t n); strncmp compares strings s1 and s2 lexically up to a maximum length of n, e.g. strncmp("for","formula",3) returns 0 (equal), because the first three characters of both arguments match one another.
Return val.	< 0	in the first n characters, s1 is lexically less than s2.
	0	in the first n characters, s1 and s2 are lexically equal.
	> 0	in the first n characters, s1 is lexically greater than s2.
Note	Strings terminated with the null byte (\0) are expected as arguments.
Example	In the following guessing program, strncmp is used to determine the lexical order of two strings. #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> int main(void) { int i, n, result; char s[BUFSIZ], w[BUFSIZ]; printf("Please enter the word to be guessed:\n"); scanf("%s", w); n = strlen(w); printf("\nThe word entered has %d letters.\n", n); i = 0; do { i++; printf("Your attempt: \n"); scanf("%s", s); if (strlen(s) > n) { printf("Your input is too long!\n"); continue; } result = strncmp(s, w, n); /* result is assigned the result of strncmp */ if (result > 0) printf("%s is lexically greater.\n", s); else { if (result < 0) printf("%s is lexically less.\n", s); } } while (result != 0); printf("Correct! The word was : %s\n", w); printf("You needed %d attempts.\n", i); return 0; }
See also		strcmp