xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/string/memmem.3 (revision e0c4386e7e71d93b0edc0c8fa156263fc4a8b0b6)
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27.Dd June 29, 2023
28.Dt MEMMEM 3
29.Os
30.Sh NAME
31.Nm memmem
32.Nd "locate a byte substring in a byte string"
33.Sh LIBRARY
34.Lb libc
35.Sh SYNOPSIS
36.In string.h
37.Ft "void *"
38.Fo memmem
39.Fa "const void *big" "size_t big_len"
40.Fa "const void *little" "size_t little_len"
41.Fc
42.Sh DESCRIPTION
43The
44.Fn memmem
45function
46locates the first occurrence of the byte string
47.Fa little
48in the byte string
49.Fa big .
50.Sh RETURN VALUES
51If
52.Fa little_len
53is zero
54.Fa big
55is returned (that is, an empty little is deemed to match at the beginning of
56big);
57if
58.Fa little
59occurs nowhere in
60.Fa big ,
61.Dv NULL
62is returned;
63otherwise a pointer to the first character of the first occurrence of
64.Fa little
65is returned.
66.Sh SEE ALSO
67.Xr memchr 3 ,
68.Xr strchr 3 ,
69.Xr strstr 3
70.Sh CONFORMING TO
71.Fn memmem
72started as a GNU extension but is now available in at least
73the GNU, musl, bionic, OpenBSD, NetBSD, macOS, and illumos C runtime libraries.
74.Sh HISTORY
75The
76.Fn memmem
77function first appeared in
78.Fx 6.0 .
79It was replaced with an optimized O(n) implementation from the musl libc
80project in
81.Fx 12.0 .
82.An Pascal Gloor Aq Mt pascal.gloor@spale.com
83provided this man page along with the previous implementation.
84.Sh BUGS
85This function was broken in Linux libc up to and including version 5.0.9
86and in GNU libc prior to version 2.1.
87Prior to
88.Fx 11.0
89.Nm
90returned
91.Dv NULL
92when
93.Fa little_len
94equals 0.
95