The header file <string.h> defines functions that operate on arrays that are interpreted as null-terminated strings.

Various methods are used for determining the lengths of the arrays, but in all cases a char * or void * argument points to the initial (lowest addressed) character of the array. If an array is accessed beyond the end of an object, the behavior is undefined.

Where an argument declared as size_t n specifies the length of an array for a function, n can have the value zero on a call to that function. Unless explicitly stated otherwise in the description of a particular function, pointer arguments must have valid values on a call with a zero size. On such a call, a function that locates a character finds no occurrence, a function that compares two character sequences returns zero, and a function that copies characters copies zero characters.

Copying functions
memcpy Copy memory
memmove Safely copy overlapping memory
strcpy Copy string
strncpy Copy string up to a maximum length
Concatenation functions
strcat Convert string to int
strncat Convert string to long
Comparison functions
memcmp Compare memory
strcmp Compare strings
strncmp Compare strings up to a maximum length
strcoll Collate strings
Search functions
memchr Search memory for a character
strchr Find first occurrence of character within string
strcspn Compute size of string not prefixed by a set of characters
strpbrk Find first occurrence of characters within string
strrchr Find last occurrence of character within string
strspn Compute size of string prefixed by a set of characters
strstr Find first occurrence of a string within a string
strtok Break string into tokens
Miscellaneous functions
memset Set memory to character
strerror Return string from error code
strlen Calculate length of string