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CONFSTR(3)                              BSD Library Functions Manual                              CONFSTR(3)

NAME
     confstr -- get string-valued configurable variables

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <unistd.h>

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

DESCRIPTION
     This interface is specified by POSIX.  A more flexible (but non-portable) interface is provided by
     sysctl(3).

     The confstr() function provides a method for applications to get configuration defined string values.
     Shell programmers needing access to these parameters should use the getconf(1) utility.

     The name argument specifies the system variable to be queried.  Symbolic constants for each name value
     are found in the include file <unistd.h>.  The len argument specifies the size of the buffer referenced
     by the argument buf.  If len is non-zero, buf is a non-null pointer, and name has a value, up to len -1 len1
     1 bytes of the value are copied into the buffer buf.  The copied value is always null terminated.

     The available values are as follows:

     _CS_PATH
             Return a value for the PATH environment variable that finds all the standard utilities.

RETURN VALUES
     If the call to confstr() is not successful, 0 is returned and errno is set appropriately.  Otherwise,
     if the variable does not have a configuration defined value, 0 is returned and errno is not modified.
     Otherwise, the buffer size needed to hold the entire configuration-defined value is returned.  If this
     size is greater than the argument len, the string in buf was truncated.

ERRORS
     The confstr() function may fail and set errno for any of the errors specified for the library functions
     malloc(3) and sysctl(3).

     In addition, the following errors may be reported:

     [EINVAL]           The value of the name argument is invalid.

LEGACY ERRORS
     If the call to confstr() is not successful, -1 (rather than 0) is returned and errno is set appropri-ately. appropriately.
     ately.

SEE ALSO
     getconf(1), pathconf(2), sysconf(3), sysctl(3)

HISTORY
     The confstr() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

BSD                                             June 18, 2001                                            BSD