xref: /freebsd/lib/libutil/property.3 (revision cc68614da8232d8baaca0ae0d0dd8f890f06623e)
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\" "
28.Dd October 7, 1998
29.Dt PROPERTIES 3
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm properties_read ,
33.Nm property_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 libutil.h
40.Ft properties
41.Fn properties_read "int fd"
42.Ft char *
43.Fn property_find "properties list" "const char *name"
44.Ft void
45.Fn properties_free "properties list"
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47.Bd -literal
48typedef struct _properties {
49	struct _properties *next;
50	char *name;
51	char *value;
52} *properties;
53.Ed
54.Pp
55The function
56.Fn properties_read
57reads
58.Fa name = value
59pairs from the file descriptor passed in
60.Fa fd
61and returns the head of a new property list, assuming that the
62file's contents have been parsed properly, or NULL in case
63of error.
64.Pp
65The
66.Fn property_find
67function returns the associated value string for the property named
68.Fa name
69if found, otherwise NULL.
70The value returned may be up to
71.Dv PROPERTY_MAX_VALUE
72bytes in length.
73.Pp
74The
75.Fn properties_free
76function is used to free the structure returned by
77.Fn properties_read
78when it is no longer needed.
79.Sh FILE FORMAT
80Each property in the file is assumed to have the format of
81.Fa name = value
82where
83.Fa name
84is an alphanumeric string (and any punctuation not including the `=' character)
85and
86.Fa value
87is an arbitrary string of text terminated by a newline character.
88If newlines
89are desired, the entire value should be enclosed in { } (curly-bracket)
90characters.
91Any line beginning with a # or ; character is assumed to
92be a comment and will be ignored.
93.Sh AUTHORS
94.An Jordan Hubbard
95.Sh BUGS
96Simplistic.
97