1STRTOL(3) Linux Programmer's Manual STRTOL(3)
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6 strtol, strtoll, strtoq - convert a string to a long integer
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9 #include <stdlib.h>
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11 long int
12 strtol(const char *nptr, char **endptr, int base);
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14 long long int
15 strtoll(const char *nptr, char **endptr, int base);
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18 The strtol() function converts the initial part of the string in nptr
19 to a long integer value according to the given base, which must be
20 between 2 and 36 inclusive, or be the special value 0.
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22 The string may begin with an arbitrary amount of white space (as deter‐
23 mined by isspace(3)) followed by a single optional `+' or `-' sign. If
24 base is zero or 16, the string may then include a `0x' prefix, and the
25 number will be read in base 16; otherwise, a zero base is taken as 10
26 (decimal) unless the next character is `0', in which case it is taken
27 as 8 (octal).
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29 The remainder of the string is converted to a long int value in the
30 obvious manner, stopping at the first character which is not a valid
31 digit in the given base. (In bases above 10, the letter `A' in either
32 upper or lower case represents 10, `B' represents 11, and so forth,
33 with `Z' representing 35.)
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35 If endptr is not NULL, strtol() stores the address of the first invalid
36 character in *endptr. If there were no digits at all, strtol() stores
37 the original value of nptr in *endptr (and returns 0). In particular,
38 if *nptr is not `\0' but **endptr is `\0' on return, the entire string
39 is valid.
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41 The strtoll() function works just like the strtol() function but
42 returns a long long integer value.
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45 The strtol() function returns the result of the conversion, unless the
46 value would underflow or overflow. If an underflow occurs, strtol()
47 returns LONG_MIN. If an overflow occurs, strtol() returns LONG_MAX.
48 In both cases, errno is set to ERANGE. Precisely the same holds for
49 strtoll() (with LLONG_MIN and LLONG_MAX instead of LONG_MIN and
50 LONG_MAX).
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53 EINVAL (not in C99) The given base contains an unsupported value.
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55 ERANGE The resulting value was out of range.
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57 The implementation may also set errno to EINVAL in case no conversion
58 was performed (no digits seen, and 0 returned).
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61 Since strtol() can legitimately return 0, LONG_MAX, or LONG_MIN
62 (LLONG_MAX or LLONG_MIN for strtoll()) on both success and failure, the
63 calling program should set errno to 0 before the call, and then deter‐
64 mine if an error occurred by checking whether errno has a non-zero
65 value after the call.
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67 In locales other than the "C" locale, other strings may also be
68 accepted. (For example, the thousands separator of the current locale
69 may be supported.)
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71 BSD also has
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73 quad_t
74 strtoq(const char *nptr, char **endptr, int base);
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76 with completely analogous definition. Depending on the wordsize of the
77 current architecture, this may be equivalent to strtoll() or to str‐
78 tol().
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81 strtol() conforms to SVr4, 4.3BSD, C89, C99 and POSIX.1-2001, and str‐
82 toll() to C99 and POSIX.1-2001.
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85 The program shown below demonstrates the use of strtol(). The first
86 command line argument specifies a string from which strtol() should
87 parse a number. The second (optional) argument specifies the base to
88 be used for the conversion. (This argument is converted to numeric
89 form using atoi(3), a function that performs no error checking and has
90 a simpler interface than strtol().) Some examples of the results pro‐
91 duced by this program are the following:
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93 $ ./a.out 123
94 strtol() returned 123
95 $ ./a.out ' 123'
96 strtol() returned 123
97 $ ./a.out 123abc
98 strtol() returned 123
99 Further characters after number: abc
100 $ ./a.out 123abc 55
101 strtol: Invalid argument
102 $ ./a.out ''
103 No digits were found
104 $ ./a.out 4000000000
105 strtol: Numerical result out of range
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107 The source code of the program is as follows:
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109 #include <stdlib.h>
110 #include <limits.h>
111 #include <stdio.h>
112 #include <errno.h>
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114 int
115 main(int argc, char *argv[])
116 {
117 int base;
118 char *endptr, *str;
119 long val;
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121 if (argc < 2) {
122 fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s str [base]\n", argv[0]);
123 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
124 }
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126 str = argv[1];
127 base = (argc > 2) ? atoi(argv[2]) : 10;
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129 errno = 0; /* To distinguish success/failure after call */
130 val = strtol(str, &endptr, base);
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132 /* Check for various possible errors */
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134 if ((errno == ERANGE && (val == LONG_MAX || val == LONG_MIN))
135 || (errno != 0 && val == 0)) {
136 perror("strtol");
137 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
138 }
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140 if (endptr == str) {
141 fprintf(stderr, "No digits were found\n");
142 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
143 }
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145 /* If we got here, strtol() successfully parsed a number */
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147 printf("strtol() returned %ld\n", val);
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149 if (*endptr != '\0') /* Not necessarily an error... */
150 printf("Further characters after number: %s\n", endptr);
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152 exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
153 }
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156 atof(3), atoi(3), atol(3), strtod(3), strtoul(3)
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160GNU 2002-05-30 STRTOL(3)