strchr

 

C

Language

headers

Type support

Dynamic memory management

Error handling

Program utilities

Variadic function support

Date and time utilities

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Input/output support

Localization support

Thread support (C11)

Atomic operations (C11)

Technical Specifications

 

Strings library

Byte strings

Multibyte strings

Wide strings

 

Null-terminated byte strings

Functions
Character manipulation
isalnum isalpha islower isupper isdigit isxdigit isblank (C99)	iscntrl isgraph isspace isprint ispunct tolower toupper
Conversions to numeric formats
atof atoiatolatoll strtolstrtoll	strtoulstrtoull strtofstrtodstrtold strtoimaxstrtoumax (C99)(C99)
String manipulation
strcpystrcpy_s (C11)
strncpystrncpy_s (C11)
strcatstrcat_s (C11)
strncatstrncat_s (C11)
strxfrm
String examination
strlenstrnlen_s (C11) strcmp strncmp strcoll strchr strrchr	strspn strcspn strpbrk strstr strtokstrtok_s (C11)
Memory manipulation
memchr
memcmp
memsetmemset_s (C11)
memcpymemcpy_s (C11)
memmovememmove_s (C11)
Miscellaneous
strerrorstrerror_sstrerrorlen_s (C11)(C11)

 

Defined in header <string.h>
char *strchr( const char *str, int ch );

Finds the first occurrence of ch (after conversion to char as if by (char)ch) in the null-terminated byte string pointed to by str (each character interpreted as unsigned char). The terminating null character is considered to be a part of the string and can be found when searching for '\0'.

The behavior is undefined if str is not a pointer to a null-terminated byte string.

Parameters

str	-	pointer to the null-terminated byte string to be analyzed
ch	-	character to search for

Return value

Pointer to the found character in str, or null pointer if no such character is found.

Example

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
 
int main(void)
{
  const char *str = "Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.";
  char target = 'T';
  const char *result = str;
 
  while((result = strchr(result, target)) != NULL) {
    printf("Found '%c' starting at '%s'\n", target, result);
    ++result; // Increment result, otherwise we'll find target at the same location
  }
}

Output:

Found 'T' starting at 'Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.'
Found 'T' starting at 'There is no try.'

References

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

• 7.24.5.2 The strchr function (p: 367-368)

• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

• 7.21.5.2 The strchr function (p: 330)

• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):

• 4.11.5.2 The strchr function

See also

strrchr	finds the last occurrence of a character (function)
strpbrk	finds the first location of any character in one string, in another string (function)
C++ documentation for strchr