strncpy adding extra characters to my char array

Question

I have a character array of words. Some of them surrounded by *. If one is found, I want it put into my buffer array. I looked at test[i] + 1 in my watch window, and it does what I want. It reads as "example*". I figured if I used strncpy to copy this over with two less characters than the size of it, I would get "example", but instead, I'm getting things like "examples." or "examplers.", which doesn't make any sense to me.

char ** test;
char * buffer;
int elemLen;
if (*test[i] == '*')
{
    elemLen = strlen(test[i]);
    strncpy(buffer, test[i] + 1, elemLen - 2);
}

Answer 1

You must manually add a null character as strncopy will not do it for you.

i.e.

elemLen = strlen(test[i]);
strncpy(buffer, test[i] + 1, elemLen - 2);
buffer[elemLen - 2] = '\0';