C – strcmp() function

• strcmp( ) function in C compares two given strings and returns zero if they are same.
• If length of string1 < string2, it returns < 0 value. If length of string1 > string2, it returns > 0 value. Syntax for strcmp( ) function is given below.

int strcmp ( const char * str1, const char * str2 );

• strcmp( ) function is case sensitive. i.e, “A” and “a” are treated as different characters.

Example program for strcmp( ) function in C:

• In this program, strings “fresh” and “refresh” are compared. 0 is returned when strings are equal. Negative value is returned when str1 < str2 and positive value is returned when str1 > str2.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main( )
{
   char str1[ ] = "fresh" ;
   char str2[ ] = "refresh" ;
   int i, j, k ;
   i = strcmp ( str1, "fresh" ) ;
   j = strcmp ( str1, str2 ) ;
   k = strcmp ( str1, "f" ) ;
   printf ( "\n%d %d %d", i, j, k ) ;
   return 0;
}

Output:

0 -1 1