---
name: "SDL_strcasecmp"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "libsdl3-doc"
version: "3.2.10+ds-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/SDL_strcasecmp"
---

# SDL\_strcasecmp(3)

Compare two null-terminated UTF-8 strings, case-insensitively.

## NAME

SDL\_strcasecmp - Compare two null-terminated UTF-8 strings, case-insensitively.

## HEADER FILE

Defined in SDL3/SDL\_stdinc.h

## SYNOPSIS

```
#include "SDL3/SDL.h"
```

**int SDL\_strcasecmp(const char \*str1, const char \*str2);**

## DESCRIPTION

This will work with Unicode strings, using a technique called "case-folding" to handle the vast majority of case-sensitive human languages regardless of system locale. It can deal with expanding values: a German Eszett character can compare against two ASCII 's' chars and be considered a match, for example. A notable exception: it does not handle the Turkish 'i' character; human language is complicated!

Since this handles Unicode, it expects the string to be well-formed UTF-8 and not a null-terminated string of arbitrary bytes. Bytes that are not valid UTF-8 are treated as Unicode character U+FFFD (REPLACEMENT CHARACTER), which is to say two strings of random bits may turn out to match if they convert to the same amount of replacement characters.

## FUNCTION PARAMETERS

- *str1*

  the first string to compare. NULL is not permitted!

- *str2*

  the second string to compare. NULL is not permitted!

## RETURN VALUE

Returns less than zero if str1 is "less than" str2, greater than zero if str1 is "greater than" str2, and zero if the strings match exactly.

## THREAD SAFETY

It is safe to call this function from any thread.

## AVAILABILITY

This function is available since SDL 3.2.0.