How to Use the Strcpy Function in C++

The C++ strcpy function copies a string from a source location to a destination location and provides a null character to terminate the string. The destination should be large enough to contain the string, including the null terminator, to avoid an overflow. It should not overlap with the source because strcpy does not allocate storage. The following steps will help you use the strcpy function in C++.

Instructions

1. Learn the syntax of strcpy. The complete syntax is char *strcpy (char *destination, const char *source);.

2. Know that the destination is a pointer to an array and the source is a null-terminated string. The destination is returned.

3. Understand that the C++ strcpy function is kept in the cstring library. You may need to include the string.h header file to use this function.

4. Look at the following complete program for some simple examples of how to use strcpy:

   #include
   #include

   int main ()
   {
   char string1[]="test string";
   char string2[80];
   char string3[80];
   char *string4;
   strcpy (string2,string1);
   strcpy (string3,"strcopy worked.");
   string4 = strcpy(string2, "strcpy return example");
   printf ("string1: %s\nstring2: %s\nstring3: %s\n",string1,string2,string3);
   printf ("string4: %s\n",string4);
   return 0;
   }

5. Observe the following output for this program:

   string1: test string
   string2: test string
   string3: strcpy worked
   string4: strcpy return example

   The first strcpy shows a trivial example of copying the string pointed to by string1 into the array pointed to by string2. The second strcpy copies a literal to the destination array. Note that we must allocate storage for string2 and string3. The third strcpy illustrates a use of the return value of strcpy.

Resources

• Learn more about using strcpy in C++.