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_strnicmp, _wcsnicmp, _mbsnicmp, _strnicmp_l, _wcsnicmp_l, _mbsnicmp_l

 

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The latest version of this topic can be found at _strnicmp, _wcsnicmp, _mbsnicmp, _strnicmp_l, _wcsnicmp_l, _mbsnicmp_l.

Compares the specified number of characters of two strings without regard to case.

Important

_mbsnicmp and _mbsnicmp_l cannot be used in applications that execute in the Windows Runtime. For more information, see CRT functions not supported with /ZW.

Syntax

int _strnicmp(  
   const char *string1,  
   const char *string2,  
   size_t count   
);  
int _wcsnicmp(  
   const wchar_t *string1,  
   const wchar_t *string2,  
   size_t count   
);  
int _mbsnicmp(  
   const unsigned char *string1,  
   const unsigned char *string2,  
   size_t count   
);  
int _strnicmp_l(  
   const char *string1,  
   const char *string2,  
   size_t count,  
   _locale_t locale  
);  
int _wcsnicmp_l(  
   const wchar_t *string1,  
   const wchar_t *string2,  
   size_t count,  
   _locale_t locale  
);  
int _mbsnicmp_l(  
   const unsigned char *string1,  
   const unsigned char *string2,  
   size_t count,  
   _locale_t locale  
);  

Parameters

string1, string2
Null-terminated strings to compare.

count
Number of characters to compare.

locale
Locale to use.

Return Value

Indicates the relationship between the substrings, as follows.

Return value Description
< 0 string1 substring is less than string2 substring.
0 string1 substring is identical to string2 substring.
> 0 string1 substring is greater than string2 substring.

On a parameter validation error, these functions return _NLSCMPERROR, which is defined in <string.h> and <mbstring.h>.

Remarks

The _strnicmp function ordinally compares, at most, the first count characters of string1 and string2. The comparison is performed without regard to case by converting each character to lowercase. _strnicmp is a case-insensitive version of strncmp. The comparison ends if a terminating null character is reached in either string before count characters are compared. If the strings are equal when a terminating null character is reached in either string before count characters are compared, the shorter string is lesser.

The characters from 91 to 96 in the ASCII table ('[', '\', ']', '^', '_', and '`') evaluate as less than any alphabetic character. This ordering is identical to that of stricmp.

_wcsnicmp and _mbsnicmp are wide-character and multibyte-character versions of _strnicmp. The arguments of _wcsnicmp are wide-character strings; those of _mbsnicmp are multibyte-character strings. _mbsnicmp recognizes multibyte-character sequences according to the current multibyte code page and returns _NLSCMPERROR on an error. For more information, see Code Pages. These three functions behave identically otherwise. These functions are affected by the locale setting—the versions that don't have the _l suffix use the current locale for their locale-dependent behavior; the versions that do have the _l suffix instead use the locale that's passed in. For more information, see Locale.

All of these functions validate their parameters. If either string1 or string2 is a null pointer, the invalid parameter handler is invoked, as described in Parameter Validation. If execution is allowed to continue, these functions return _NLSCMPERROR and set errno to EINVAL.

Generic-Text Routine Mappings

TCHAR.H routine _UNICODE & _MBCS not defined _MBCS defined _UNICODE defined
_tcsncicmp _strnicmp _mbsnicmp _wcsnicmp
_tcsnicmp _strnicmp _mbsnbicmp _wcsnicmp
_tcsncicmp_l _strnicmp_l _mbsnicmp_l _wcsnicmp_l

Requirements

Routine Required header
_strnicmp, _strnicmp_l <string.h>
_wcsnicmp, _wcsnicmp_l <string.h> or <wchar.h>
_mbsnicmp, _mbsnicmp_l <mbstring.h>

For additional compatibility information, see Compatibility.

Example

See the example for strncmp.

.NET Framework Equivalent

System::String::Compare

See Also

String Manipulation
strcat, wcscat, _mbscat
strcmp, wcscmp, _mbscmp
strcpy, wcscpy, _mbscpy
strncat, _strncat_l, wcsncat, _wcsncat_l, _mbsncat, _mbsncat_l
strncmp, wcsncmp, _mbsncmp, _mbsncmp_l
strncpy, _strncpy_l, wcsncpy, _wcsncpy_l, _mbsncpy, _mbsncpy_l
strrchr, wcsrchr, _mbsrchr, _mbsrchr_l
_strset, _strset_l, _wcsset, _wcsset_l, _mbsset, _mbsset_l
strspn, wcsspn, _mbsspn, _mbsspn_l