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From: rpw3@amdcad.AMD.COM (Rob Warnock)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Bug in library routine getenv()
Message-ID: <16545@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: Tue, 5-May-87 22:09:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdcad.16545
Posted: Tue May  5 22:09:11 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 7-May-87 06:07:27 EDT
References: <3860@cae780.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: rpw3@amdcad.UUCP (Rob Warnock)
Distribution: world
Organization: [Consultant] San Mateo, CA
Lines: 22
Keywords: Bug, Fix, strncpy
Summary: strncpy is NOT broken! (RT*M)

In article <3860@cae780.TEK.COM> hubble@cae780.UUCP (Larry Hubble) writes:
>Getenv() then seems to work properly.  I believe there is also a bug in the
>library routine strncpy -- it doesn't null terminate the string if the string
>to copy is really longer that "n" characters.  I have not verified or fixed
>this yet, but will post it when I get a chance to cure it.

This is *NOT* a bug, so don't try to "fix" it -- you will break many working
programs! Read any System-V or POSIX man page for "strncpy": "...The result is
not null-terminated if the source string contained 'n' or more characters..."
This allows "strncpy" to be used to "insert" pieces of one string into another.

(Sorry if it's not to your taste, but that's the way it was defined a long time
ago...)


Rob Warnock
Systems Architecture Consultant

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