---
name: "SDL_wcsncmp"
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_wcsncmp"
---

# SDL\_wcsncmp(3)

Compare two wide strings up to a number of wchar\_t values.

## NAME

SDL\_wcsncmp - Compare two wide strings up to a number of wchar\_t values.

## HEADER FILE

Defined in SDL3/SDL\_stdinc.h

## SYNOPSIS

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

**int SDL\_wcsncmp(const wchar\_t \*str1, const wchar\_t \*str2, size\_t maxlen);**

## DESCRIPTION

This only compares wchar\_t values; it does not care if the string is well-formed UTF-16 (or UTF-32, depending on your platform's wchar\_t size), or uses valid Unicode values.

Note that while this function is intended to be used with UTF-16 (or UTF-32, depending on your platform's definition of wchar\_t), it is comparing raw wchar\_t values and not Unicode codepoints: **maxlen** specifies a wchar\_t limit! If the limit lands in the middle of a multi-wchar UTF-16 sequence, it will only compare a portion of the final character. **maxlen** specifies a maximum number of wchar\_t to compare; if the strings match to this number of wide chars (or both have matched to a null-terminator character before this count), they will be considered equal.

## FUNCTION PARAMETERS

- *str1*

  the first string to compare. NULL is not permitted!

- *str2*

  the second string to compare. NULL is not permitted!

- *maxlen*

  the maximum number of wchar\_t to compare.

## 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.