xref: /freebsd/lib/libutil/property.3 (revision 2008043f386721d58158e37e0d7e50df8095942d)
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26.Dd October 7, 1998
27.Dt PROPERTIES 3
28.Os
29.Sh NAME
30.Nm properties_read ,
31.Nm property_find ,
32.Nm properties_free
33.Nd "functions to allow creating simple property lists from ASCII file data"
34.Sh LIBRARY
35.Lb libutil
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.In libutil.h
38.Ft properties
39.Fn properties_read "int fd"
40.Ft char *
41.Fn property_find "properties list" "const char *name"
42.Ft void
43.Fn properties_free "properties list"
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45.Bd -literal
46typedef struct _properties {
47	struct _properties *next;
48	char *name;
49	char *value;
50} *properties;
51.Ed
52.Pp
53The function
54.Fn properties_read
55reads
56.Fa name = value
57pairs from the file descriptor passed in
58.Fa fd
59and returns the head of a new property list, assuming that the
60file's contents have been parsed properly, or NULL in case
61of error.
62.Pp
63The
64.Fn property_find
65function returns the associated value string for the property named
66.Fa name
67if found, otherwise NULL.
68The value returned may be up to
69.Dv PROPERTY_MAX_VALUE
70bytes in length.
71.Pp
72The
73.Fn properties_free
74function is used to free the structure returned by
75.Fn properties_read
76when it is no longer needed.
77.Sh FILE FORMAT
78Each property in the file is assumed to have the format of
79.Fa name = value
80where
81.Fa name
82is an alphanumeric string (and any punctuation not including the `=' character)
83and
84.Fa value
85is an arbitrary string of text terminated by a newline character.
86If newlines
87are desired, the entire value should be enclosed in { } (curly-bracket)
88characters.
89Any line beginning with a # or ; character is assumed to
90be a comment and will be ignored.
91.Sh AUTHORS
92.An Jordan Hubbard
93.Sh BUGS
94Simplistic.
95