NAME

       confstr - get configuration dependent string variables

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       size_t confstr(int name, char *buf, size_t len);

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

       If len 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 len, 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   │
       ├──────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │confstr() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └──────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

EXAMPLE

       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) sysconf(3) pathconf(3) system(3)

COLOPHON

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