C Language Strings Comparsion: strcmp(), strncmp(), strcasecmp(), strncasecmp()
Example
The strcase*-functions are not Standard C, but a POSIX extension.
The strcmp function lexicographically compare two null-terminated character arrays. The functions return a negative value if the first argument appears before the second in lexicographical order, zero if they compare equal, or positive if the first argument appears after the second in lexicographical order.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void compare(char const *lhs, char const *rhs)
{
int result = strcmp(lhs, rhs); // compute comparison once
if (result < 0) {
printf("%s comes before %s\n", lhs, rhs);
} else if (result == 0) {
printf("%s equals %s\n", lhs, rhs);
} else { // last case: result > 0
printf("%s comes after %s\n", lhs, rhs);
}
}
int main(void)
{
compare("BBB", "BBB");
compare("BBB", "CCCCC");
compare("BBB", "AAAAAA");
return 0;
}
Outputs:
BBB equals BBB
BBB comes before CCCCC
BBB comes after AAAAAA
As strcmp, strcasecmp function also compares lexicographically its arguments after translating each character to its lowercase correspondent:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void compare(char const *lhs, char const *rhs)
{
int result = strcasecmp(lhs, rhs); // compute case-insensitive comparison once
if (result < 0) {
printf("%s comes before %s\n", lhs, rhs);
} else if (result == 0) {
printf("%s equals %s\n", lhs, rhs);
} else { // last case: result > 0
printf("%s comes after %s\n", lhs, rhs);
}
}
int main(void)
{
compare("BBB", "bBB");
compare("BBB", "ccCCC");
compare("BBB", "aaaaaa");
return 0;
}
Outputs:
BBB equals bBB
BBB comes before ccCCC
BBB comes after aaaaaa
strncmp and strncasecmp compare at most n characters:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void compare(char const *lhs, char const *rhs, int n)
{
int result = strncmp(lhs, rhs, n); // compute comparison once
if (result < 0) {
printf("%s comes before %s\n", lhs, rhs);
} else if (result == 0) {
printf("%s equals %s\n", lhs, rhs);
} else { // last case: result > 0
printf("%s comes after %s\n", lhs, rhs);
}
}
int main(void)
{
compare("BBB", "Bb", 1);
compare("BBB", "Bb", 2);
compare("BBB", "Bb", 3);
return 0;
}
Outputs:
BBB equals Bb
BBB comes before Bb
BBB comes before Bb
