1ggstrlcpy(3) GGI ggstrlcpy(3)
2
6 ggstrlcpy, ggstrlcat : size-bounded string copying and concatenation
7
9 #include <ggi/gg.h>
10 size_t ggstrlcpy(char *dst, const char *src, size_t siz);
12 size_t ggstrlcat(char *dst, const char *src, size_t siz);
14
17 The ggstrlcpy and ggstrlcat functions copy and concatenate strings
18 respectively. They are designed to be safer, more consistent, and less
19 error prone replacements for strncpy(3) and strncat(3). Unlike those
20 functions, ggstrlcpy and ggstrlcat take the full size of the buffer
21 (not just the length) and guarantee to NUL-terminate the result (as
22 long as size is larger than 0 or, in the case of ggstrlcat, as long as
23 there is at least one byte free in dst). Note that you should include
24 a byte for the NUL in size. Also note that ggstrlcpy and ggstrlcat
25 only operate on true C strings. This means that for ggstrlcpy src must
26 be NUL-terminated and for ggstrlcat both src and dst must be NUL-termi‐
27 nated.
28 The ggstrlcpy function copies up to siz - 1 characters from the NUL-
30 terminated string src to dst, NUL-terminating the result.
31 The ggstrlcat function appends the NUL-terminated string src to the end
33 of dst. It will append at most siz - strlen(dst) - 1 bytes, NUL-termi‐
34 nating the result.
35
37 The ggstrlcpy and ggstrlcat functions return the total length of the
38 string they tried to create. For ggstrlcpy that means the length of
39 src. For ggstrlcat that means the initial length of dst plus the
40 length of src. While this may seem somewhat confusing it was done to
41 make truncation detection simple.
42 Note however, that if ggstrlcat traverses size characters without find‐
44 ing a NUL, the length of the string is considered to be size and the
45 destination string will not be NUL-terminated (since there was no space
46 for the NUL). This keeps ggstrlcat from running off the end of a
47 string. In practice this should not happen (as it means that either
48 size is incorrect or that dst is not a proper C string). The check
49 exists to prevent potential security problems in incorrect code.
50
52 The following code fragment illustrates the simple case:
53 char *s, *p, buf[BUFSIZ];
55 (void)ggstrlcpy(buf, s, sizeof(buf));
58 (void)ggstrlcat(buf, p, sizeof(buf));
59 To detect truncation, perhaps while building a pathname, something like
61 the following might be used:
62 char *dir, *file, pname[MAXPATHLEN];
64 if (ggstrlcpy(pname, dir, sizeof(pname)) >= sizeof(pname))
67 goto toolong;
68 if (ggstrlcat(pname, file, sizeof(pname)) >= sizeof(pname))
69 goto toolong;
70 Since we know how many characters we copied the first time, we can
72 speed things up a bit by using a copy instead of an append:
73 char *dir, *file, pname[MAXPATHLEN];
75 size_t n;
76 n = ggstrlcpy(pname, dir, sizeof(pname));
79 if (n >= sizeof(pname))
80 goto toolong;
81 if (ggstrlcpy(pname + n, file, sizeof(pname) - n) >= sizeof(pname) - n)
82 goto toolong;
83 However, one may question the validity of such optimizations, as they
85 defeat the whole purpose of ggstrlcpy and ggstrlcat.
86
88 snprintf(3) strncat(3) strncpy(3)
89
91 strlcpy and strlcat first appeared in OpenBSD 2.4, then in NetBSD 1.4.3
92 and FreeBSD 3.3.0. ggstrlcpy and ggstrlcat has been added to libgg for
93 portability.
94libgg-1.0.x 2005-08-26 ggstrlcpy(3)