redhat man page for strncpy

STRCPY(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual							 STRCPY(3)

NAME
       strcpy, strncpy - copy a string

SYNOPSIS
       #include <string.h>

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

       char *strncpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n);

DESCRIPTION
       The  strcpy() function copies the string pointed to by src (including the terminating `' character) 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.

       The strncpy() function is similar, except that not more than n bytes of src are copied. Thus, if there is no null byte among  the  first  n
       bytes of src, the result will not be null-terminated.

       In the case where the length of src is less than that of n, the remainder of dest will be padded with nulls.

RETURN VALUE
       The strcpy() and strncpy() functions return a pointer to the destination string dest.

BUGS
       If  the	destination  string  of  a  strcpy() is not large enough (that is, if the programmer was stupid/lazy, and failed to check the size
       before copying) then anything might happen.  Overflowing fixed length strings is a favourite cracker technique.

CONFORMING TO
       SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3, ISO 9899

SEE ALSO
       bcopy(3), memccpy(3), memcpy(3), memmove(3)

GNU
								    1993-04-11								 STRCPY(3)