stpcpy — copy a string returning a pointer to its end

Synopsis

#include <string.h>

char *stpcpy(char *dest, const char *src);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

stpcpy():

Since glibc 2.10:

_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L

Before glibc 2.10:

_GNU_SOURCE

Description

The stpcpy() function copies the string pointed to by src (including the terminating null byte ('\0')) to the array pointed to by dest. The strings may not overlap, and the destination string dest must be large enough to receive the copy.

Return Value

stpcpy() returns a pointer to the end of the string dest (that is, the address of the terminating null byte) rather than the beginning.

Attributes

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface Attribute Value
stpcpy() Thread safety MT-Safe

Conforming to

This function was added to POSIX.1-2008. Before that, it was not part of the C or POSIX.1 standards, nor customary on UNIX systems. It first appeared at least as early as 1986, in the Lattice C AmigaDOS compiler, then in the GNU fileutils and GNU textutils in 1989, and in the GNU C library by 1992. It is also present on the BSDs.

Bugs

This function may overrun the buffer dest.

Example

For example, this program uses stpcpy() to concatenate foo and bar to produce foobar, which it then prints.

#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int
main(void)
{
    char buffer[20];
    char *to = buffer;

    to = stpcpy(to, "foo");
    to = stpcpy(to, "bar");
    printf("%s\n", buffer);
}

See Also

bcopy(3), memccpy(3), memcpy(3), memmove(3), stpncpy(3), strcpy(3), string(3), wcpcpy(3)

Colophon

This page is part of release 5.04 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Referenced By

feature_test_macros(7), memstomp(1), signal-safety(7), strcpy(3), string(3), wcpcpy(3).

2019-03-06 GNU Linux Programmer's Manual