xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/stdlib/getenv.3 (revision 7f3dea244c40159a41ab22da77a434d7c5b5e85a)
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36.\"     @(#)getenv.3	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93
37.\" $FreeBSD$
38.\"
39.Dd December 11, 1993
40.Dt GETENV 3
41.Os
42.Sh NAME
43.Nm getenv ,
44.Nm putenv ,
45.Nm setenv ,
46.Nm unsetenv
47.Nd environment variable functions
48.Sh SYNOPSIS
49.Fd #include <stdlib.h>
50.Ft char *
51.Fn getenv "const char *name"
52.Ft int
53.Fn setenv "const char *name" "const char *value" "int overwrite"
54.Ft int
55.Fn putenv "const char *string"
56.Ft void
57.Fn unsetenv "const char *name"
58.Sh DESCRIPTION
59These functions set, unset and fetch environment variables from the
60host
61.Em environment list .
62For compatibility with differing environment conventions,
63the given arguments
64.Ar name
65and
66.Ar value
67may be appended and prepended,
68respectively,
69with an equal sign
70.Dq Li \&= .
71.Pp
72The
73.Fn getenv
74function obtains the current value of the environment variable,
75.Ar name .
76If the variable
77.Ar name
78is not in the current environment,
79a null pointer is returned.
80.Pp
81The
82.Fn setenv
83function inserts or resets the environment variable
84.Ar name
85in the current environment list.
86If the variable
87.Ar name
88does not exist in the list,
89it is inserted with the given
90.Ar value.
91If the variable does exist, the argument
92.Ar overwrite
93is tested; if
94.Ar overwrite is
95zero, the
96variable is not reset, otherwise it is reset
97to the given
98.Ar value .
99.Pp
100The
101.Fn putenv
102function takes an argument of the form ``name=value'' and is
103equivalent to:
104.Bd -literal -offset indent
105setenv(name, value, 1);
106.Ed
107.Pp
108The
109.Fn unsetenv
110function
111deletes all instances of the variable name pointed to by
112.Fa name
113from the list.
114.Sh RETURN VALUES
115The functions
116.Fn setenv
117and
118.Fn putenv
119return zero if successful; otherwise the global variable
120.Va errno
121is set to indicate the error and a
122\-1 is returned.
123.Sh ERRORS
124.Bl -tag -width [ENOMEM]
125.It Bq Er ENOMEM
126The function
127.Fn setenv
128or
129.Fn putenv
130failed because they were unable to allocate memory for the environment.
131.El
132.Sh SEE ALSO
133.Xr csh 1 ,
134.Xr sh 1 ,
135.Xr execve 2 ,
136.Xr environ 7
137.Sh STANDARDS
138The
139.Fn getenv
140function conforms to
141.St -ansiC .
142.Sh HISTORY
143The functions
144.Fn setenv
145and
146.Fn unsetenv
147appeared in
148.At v7 .
149The
150.Fn putenv
151function appeared in
152.Bx 4.3 Reno .
153