strchr() — Search for Character

Last Updated: 2025-10-07

Format

#include <string.h>
char *strchr(const char *string, int c);

Language Level

ANSI

Threadsafe

Yes

Locale Sensitive

The behavior of this function might be affected by the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale. For more information, see Understanding CCSIDs and Locales.

Description

The strchr() function finds the first occurrence of a character in a string. The character c can be the null character (\0); the ending null character of string is included in the search.

The strchr() function operates on null-ended strings. The string arguments to the function should contain a null character (\0) that marks the end of the string.

Return Value

The strchr() function returns a pointer to the first occurrence of c that is converted to a character in string. The function returns NULL if the specified character is not found.

Example

This example finds the first occurrence of the character “p” in “computer program”.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
 
#define SIZE 40
 
int main(void)
{
  char buffer1[SIZE] = "computer program";
  char * ptr;
  int    ch = 'p';
 
  ptr = strchr( buffer1, ch );
  printf( "The first occurrence of %c in '%s' is '%s'\n",
            ch, buffer1, ptr );
 
}
 
/*****************  Output should be similar to:  *****************
 
The first occurrence of p in 'computer program' is 'puter program'
*/