diff --git a/git-compat-util.h b/git-compat-util.h
index 8ba576e81e..a3dcfc8613 100644
--- a/git-compat-util.h
+++ b/git-compat-util.h
@@ -868,6 +868,12 @@ char *xgetcwd(void);
 FILE *fopen_for_writing(const char *path);
 FILE *fopen_or_warn(const char *path, const char *mode);
 
+/*
+ * Like strncmp, but only return zero if s is NUL-terminated and exactly len
+ * characters long.  If it is not, consider it greater than t.
+ */
+int xstrncmpz(const char *s, const char *t, size_t len);
+
 /*
  * FREE_AND_NULL(ptr) is like free(ptr) followed by ptr = NULL. Note
  * that ptr is used twice, so don't pass e.g. ptr++.
diff --git a/wrapper.c b/wrapper.c
index 3a1c0e0526..4ff4a9c3db 100644
--- a/wrapper.c
+++ b/wrapper.c
@@ -105,6 +105,14 @@ char *xstrndup(const char *str, size_t len)
 	return xmemdupz(str, p ? p - str : len);
 }
 
+int xstrncmpz(const char *s, const char *t, size_t len)
+{
+	int res = strncmp(s, t, len);
+	if (res)
+		return res;
+	return s[len] == '\0' ? 0 : 1;
+}
+
 void *xrealloc(void *ptr, size_t size)
 {
 	void *ret;