StringCchCatNA function (strsafe.h)

Concatenates the specified number of characters from one string to another string. The size of the destination buffer is provided to the function to ensure that it does not write past the end of this buffer.

StringCchCatN is a replacement for the following functions:

Syntax

STRSAFEAPI StringCchCatNA(
  [in, out] STRSAFE_LPSTR  pszDest,
  [in]      size_t         cchDest,
  [in]      STRSAFE_PCNZCH pszSrc,
  [in]      size_t         cchToAppend
);

Parameters

[in, out] pszDest

Type: LPTSTR

The destination buffer, which contains the string that is to be concatenated with pszSrc, and will receive the entire resultant string. The string at pszSrc, up to cchMaxAppend characters, is added to the end of the string at pszDest.

[in] cchDest

Type: size_t

The size of the destination buffer, in characters. This value must equal the length of pszSrc plus either the length of pszDest or cchMaxAppend (whichever is smaller). To this sum add 1 to account for the terminating null character. The maximum number of characters allowed is STRSAFE_MAX_CCH.

[in] pszSrc

Type: LPCTSTR

The source string that is concatenated to the end of pszDest. This string must be null-terminated.

[in] cchToAppend

Type: size_t

The maximum number of characters to be appended to pszDest.

Return value

Type: HRESULT

This function can return one of the following values. It is strongly recommended that you use the SUCCEEDED and FAILED macros to test the return value of this function.

Return code Description
S_OK
Source data was present, the strings were concatenated without truncation, and the resultant destination buffer is null-terminated.
STRSAFE_E_INVALID_PARAMETER
The value in cchDest is either larger than STRSAFE_MAX_CCH, or the destination buffer is already full.
STRSAFE_E_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER
The concatenation operation failed due to insufficient buffer space. The destination buffer contains a truncated, null-terminated version of the intended result. In situations where truncation is acceptable, this may not necessarily be seen as a failure condition.
 

Note that this function returns an HRESULT value, unlike the functions that it replaces.

Remarks

Compared to the functions it replaces, StringCchCatN provides additional processing for proper buffer handling in your code. Poor buffer handling is implicated in many security issues that involve buffer overruns. StringCchCatN always null-terminates and never overflows a valid destination buffer, even if the contents of the source string change during the operation.

Behavior is undefined if the strings pointed to by pszSrc and pszDest overlap.

Neither pszSrc nor pszDest should be NULL. See StringCchCatNEx if you require the handling of null string pointer values.

StringCchCatN can be used in its generic form, or in its more specific forms. The data type of the string determines the form of this function that you should use.

String Data Type String Literal Function
char "string" StringCchCatNA
TCHAR TEXT("string") StringCchCatN
WCHAR L"string" StringCchCatNW
 

Note

The strsafe.h header defines StringCchCatN as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows XP with SP2 [desktop apps | UWP apps]
Minimum supported server Windows Server 2003 with SP1 [desktop apps | UWP apps]
Target Platform Windows
Header strsafe.h

See also

Reference

StringCbCatN

StringCchCat

StringCchCatNEx