How to implement guide with `strncpy` not null-terminating strings as expected in c
I'm refactoring my project and I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me... I'm working with a strange scenario where using `strncpy` to copy strings is not null-terminating the destination string as I expected. I have a fixed-size destination buffer, and I'm trying to copy a user input string into it. The input string can potentially be longer than the destination buffer, and I'm using `strncpy` to prevent overflow. However, I noticed that when the input string is longer than the buffer size, it seems to copy the data without adding a null terminator, which leads to undefined behavior when I try to print it later. Here’s a simplified version of my code: ```c #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #define BUFFER_SIZE 10 int main() { char buffer[BUFFER_SIZE]; const char *input = "This is a very long string that exceeds the buffer"; strncpy(buffer, input, BUFFER_SIZE); // Manually null terminate if the input length is >= BUFFER_SIZE buffer[BUFFER_SIZE - 1] = '\0'; printf("Copied string: '%s'\n", buffer); return 0; } ``` I've added a manual null terminator after the copy, which seems to help, but I'm wondering if there’s a better or more idiomatic way to handle this scenario. I also read somewhere that this approach isn't safe if the input string is exactly the size of the destination, as it might not get null terminated in that case. Can someone clarify the expected behavior of `strncpy` and suggest best practices for copying strings safely in C? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Any ideas how to fix this?