Diffrence between Strcpy(), Strncpy() and strcpy_s() Functions


Diffrence between Strcpy(), Strncpy() and strcpy_s() Functions

Consider the code snippet:

char str[5];
strcpy (str, "Hello");

This will copy the word "Hello" to the character buffer 'str', but if i write ,

strcpy (str, "Hello world");

it will corrupt the memory in adjacent locations to str because the buffer str is only 5 bytes long and the source string is 11 bytes. The safe way is use the strncpy() function that takes the size of the destination buffer also as an argument.

strncpy (str, "Hello", 5);

or

strncpy (str, "Hello world",5);

Now, irrespective of the size of the source string, only 5 bytes will be copied to str.

Taking one step ahead, Microsoft released a set of more secure versions of these functions in Visual C++ 2005. This enhanced set includes secure versions of functions like strcpy, ctime, fopen, scanf and many more.

The newer functions have the same function name appended by the "_s" suffix. e.g. the secure version for strcpy() is strcpy_s(). Of course, there are differences in function prototypes. In the case of strcpy() and strcpy_s() they are:

char *strcpy( char *strDest, const char *strSrc );
errno_t strcpy_s( char *strDest, size_t nSize, const char *strSrc );

You will notice that strcpy_s() takes size of the destination buffer also, as an input parameter.


Comments

Guest Author: Lawrence Love20 Nov 2012

I'm looking for the difference between strncpy and strcpy_s. They both use the same arguments but what makes strcpy_s differenct from strncpy?



  • Do not include your name, "with regards" etc in the comment. Write detailed comment, relevant to the topic.
  • No HTML formatting and links to other web sites are allowed.
  • This is a strictly moderated site. Absolutely no spam allowed.
  • Name:
    Email: