xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/gen/getprogname.3 (revision 7aa383846770374466b1dcb2cefd71bde9acf463)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2001 Christopher G. Demetriou
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32.\" $FreeBSD$
33.\"
34.Dd May 1, 2001
35.Dt GETPROGNAME 3
36.Os
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm getprogname ,
39.Nm setprogname
40.Nd get or set the program name
41.Sh LIBRARY
42.Lb libc
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.In stdlib.h
45.Ft const char *
46.Fn getprogname "void"
47.Ft void
48.Fn setprogname "const char *progname"
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Fn getprogname
52and
53.Fn setprogname
54functions manipulate the name of the current program.
55They are used by error-reporting routines to produce
56consistent output.
57.Pp
58The
59.Fn getprogname
60function returns the name of the program.
61If the name has not been set yet, it will return
62.Dv NULL .
63.Pp
64The
65.Fn setprogname
66function sets the name of the program to be the last component of the
67.Fa progname
68argument.
69Since a pointer to the given string is kept as the program name,
70it should not be modified for the rest of the program's lifetime.
71.Pp
72In
73.Fx ,
74the name of the program is set by the start-up code that is run before
75.Fn main ;
76thus,
77running
78.Fn setprogname
79is not necessary.
80Programs that desire maximum portability should still call it;
81on another operating system,
82these functions may be implemented in a portability library.
83Calling
84.Fn setprogname
85allows the aforementioned library to learn the program name without
86modifications to the start-up code.
87.Sh SEE ALSO
88.Xr err 3 ,
89.Xr setproctitle 3
90.Sh HISTORY
91These functions first appeared in
92.Nx 1.6 ,
93and made their way into
94.Fx 4.4 .
95