Bounded Copy

A bounded copy leaves room for the null terminator in the destination buffer.

bounded_copy.c

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    char source[] = "trace";
    char target[8];
    int capacity = ;
    int i = 0;

    while (i < capacity - 1 && source[i] != '\0') {
        target[i] = source[i];
        i++;
    }
    target[i] = '\0';

    printf("copy=%s\n", target);
    return 0;
}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    char source[] = "trace";
    char target[8];
    int capacity = ;
    int i = 0;

    while (i < capacity - 1 && source[i] != '\0') {
        target[i] = source[i];
        i++;
    }
    target[i] = '\0';

    printf("copy=%s\n", target);
    return 0;
}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    char source[] = "trace";
    char target[8];
    int capacity = ;
    int i = 0;

    while (i < capacity - 1 && source[i] != '\0') {
        target[i] = source[i];
        i++;
    }
    target[i] = '\0';

    printf("copy=%s\n", target);
    return 0;
}

capacity The destination capacity controls how many characters can be copied safely.

leave room Copy at most `capacity - 1` characters, then write the terminator.