confstr(3)

NAME
confstr - get configuration dependent string variables

LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>

size_t confstr(size_t size;
               int name, char buf[size], size_t size);

    Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

confstr():
    _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 2 || _XOPEN_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION
confstr() gets the value of configuration-dependent string variables.

The name argument is the system variable to be queried. The following variables are supported:

_CS_GNU_LIBC_VERSION (GNU C library only; since glibc 2.3.2)
    A string which identifies the GNU C library version on this system (e.g., "glibc 2.3.4").

_CS_GNU_LIBPTHREAD_VERSION (GNU C library only; since glibc 2.3.2)
    A string which identifies the POSIX implementation supplied by this C library (e.g., "NPTL 2.3.4" or "linuxthreads-0.10").

_CS_PATH
    A value for the PATH variable which indicates where all the POSIX.2 standard utilities can be found.

If buf is not NULL and size is not zero, confstr() copies the value of the string to buf truncated to size - 1 bytes if necessary, with a null byte ('\0') as terminator. This can be detected by comparing the return value of confstr() against size.

If size is zero and buf is NULL, confstr() just returns the value as defined below.

RETURN VALUE
If name is a valid configuration variable, confstr() returns the number of bytes (including the terminating null byte) that would be required to hold the entire value of that variable. This value may be greater than size, which means that the value in buf is truncated.

If name is a valid configuration variable, but that variable does not have a value, then confstr() returns 0. If name does not correspond to a valid configuration variable, confstr() returns 0, and errno is set to EINVAL.

ERRORS

EINVAL
    The value of name is invalid.

ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
Interface | Attribute | Value
 | Thread safety | MT-Safe

STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY
POSIX.1-2001.

EXAMPLES
The following code fragment determines the path where to find the POSIX.2 system utilities:

    char *pathbuf;
    size_t n;

    n = confstr(_CS_PATH, NULL, (size_t) 0);
    pathbuf = malloc(n);
    if (pathbuf == NULL)
        abort();
    confstr(_CS_PATH, pathbuf, n);

SEE ALSO
getconf(1), sh(1), exec(3), fpathconf(3), pathconf(3), sysconf(3), system(3)