xref: /freebsd/lib/libutil/property.3 (revision 2be1a816b9ff69588e55be0a84cbe2a31efc0f2f)
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\" "
28.Dd October 7, 1998
29.Os
30.Dt PROPERTIES 3
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm properties_read ,
33.Nm propery_find ,
34.Nm properties_free
35.Nd "functions to allow creating simple property lists from ASCII file data"
36.Sh LIBRARY
37.Lb libutil
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.In sys/types.h
40.In libutil.h
41.Ft properties
42.Fn properties_read "int fd"
43.Ft char *
44.Fn property_find "properties list" "const char *name"
45.Ft void
46.Fn properties_free "properties list"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48.Bd -literal
49typedef struct _properties {
50	struct _properties *next;
51	char *name;
52	char *value;
53} *properties;
54.Ed
55.Pp
56The function
57.Fn properties_read
58reads
59.Fa name = value
60pairs from the file descriptor passed in
61.Fa fd
62and returns the head of a new property list, assuming that the
63file's contents have been parsed properly, or NULL in case
64of error.
65.Pp
66The
67.Fn property_find
68function returns the associated value string for the property named
69.Fa name
70if found, otherwise NULL.
71The value returned may be up to
72.Dv PROPERTY_MAX_VALUE
73bytes in length.
74.Pp
75The
76.Fn properties_free
77function is used to free the structure returned by
78.Fn properties_read
79when it is no longer needed.
80.Sh FILE FORMAT
81Each property in the file is assumed to have the format of
82.Fa name = value
83where
84.Fa name
85is an alphanumeric string (and any punctuation not including the `=' character)
86and
87.Fa value
88is an arbitary string of text terminated by a newline character.
89If newlines
90are desired, the entire value should be enclosed in { } (curly-bracket)
91characters.
92Any line beginning with a # or ; character is assumed to
93be a comment and will be ignored.
94.Sh SEE ALSO
95.Xr auth_getval 3
96.Sh AUTHORS
97.An Jordan Hubbard
98.Sh BUGS
99Simplistic.
100