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libstand(3)

NAME

     libstand -- support library for standalone executables

SYNOPSIS

     #include <stand.h>

DESCRIPTION

     The libstand library provides a set of supporting functions for stand-
     alone applications, mimicking where possible the standard BSD programming
     environment.  The following sections group these functions by kind.
     Unless specifically described here, see the corresponding section 3 man-
     pages for the given functions.

STRING FUNCTIONS

     String functions are available as documented in string(3) and bstring(3).

MEMORY ALLOCATION

     void * malloc(size_t size)

		 Allocate size bytes of memory from the heap using a best-fit
		 algorithm.

     void free(void *ptr)

		 Free the allocated object at ptr.

     void setheap(void *start, void *limit)

		 Initialise the heap.  This function must be called before
		 calling alloc() for the first time.  The region between start
		 and limit will be used for the heap; attempting to allocate
		 beyond this will result in a panic.

     char * sbrk(int junk)

		 Provides the behaviour of sbrk(0), i.e., returns the highest
		 point that the heap has reached.  This value can be used dur-
		 ing testing to determine the actual heap usage.  The junk
		 argument is ignored.

ENVIRONMENT

     A set of functions are provided for manipulating a flat variable space
     similar to the traditional shell-supported environment.  Major enhance-
     ments are support for set/unset hook functions.

     char * getenv(const char *name)

     int setenv(const char *name, char *value, int overwrite)

     int putenv(const char *string)

     int unsetenv(const char *name)

		 These functions behave similarly to their standard library
		 counterparts.

     struct env_var * env_getenv(const char *name)

		 name.	If creating a new variable, the sethook and unsethook
		 arguments may be specified.

		 The set hook is invoked whenever an attempt is made to set
		 the variable, unless the EV_NOHOOK flag is set.  Typically a
		 set hook will validate the value argument, and then call
		 env_setenv() again with EV_NOHOOK set to actually save the
		 value.  The predefined function env_noset() may be specified
		 to refuse all attempts to set a variable.

		 The unset hook is invoked when an attempt is made to unset a
		 variable.  If it returns zero, the variable will be unset.
		 The predefined function env_nounset may be used to prevent a
		 variable being unset.

STANDARD LIBRARY SUPPORT

     int getopt(int argc, char * const *argv, const char *optstring)

     long strtol(const char *nptr, char **endptr, int base)

     void srandom(unsigned long seed)

     unsigned long random(void)

     char * strerror(int error)

		 Returns error messages for the subset of errno values sup-
		 ported by libstand.

     assert(expression)

		 Requires <assert.h>.

     int setjmp(jmp_buf env)

     void longjmp(jmp_buf env, int val)

		 Defined as _setjmp() and _longjmp() respectively as there is
		 no signal state to manipulate.  Requires <setjmp.h>.

CHARACTER I/O

     void gets(char *buf)

		 Read characters from the console into buf.  All of the stan-
		 dard cautions apply to this function.

     void ngets(char *buf, size_t size)

		 Read at most size - 1 characters from the console into buf.
		 If size is less than 1, the function's behaviour is as for
		 gets().

     int fgetstr(char *buf, int size, int fd)

		 Read a line of at most size characters into buf.  Line termi-
		 nating characters are stripped, and the buffer is always NUL
		 terminated.  Returns the number of characters in buf if suc-
		 cessful, or -1 if a read error occurs.

		 The *printf functions implement a subset of the standard
		 printf() family functionality and some extensions.  The fol-
		 lowing standard conversions are supported: c,d,n,o,p,s,u,x.
		 The following modifiers are supported: +,-,#,*,0,field
		 width,precision,l.

		 The b conversion is provided to decode error registers.  Its
		 usage is:

		       printf( "reg=%b\n", regval, "<base><arg>*" );

		 where <base> is the output expressed as a control character,
		 e.g. \10 gives octal, \20 gives hex.  Each <arg> is a
		 sequence of characters, the first of which gives the bit num-
		 ber to be inspected (origin 1) and the next characters (up to
		 a character less than 32) give the text to be displayed if
		 the bit is set.  Thus

		       printf( "reg=%b\n", 3, "\10\2BITTWO\1BITONE\n" );

		 would give the output

		       reg=3<BITTWO,BITONE>

		 The D conversion provides a hexdump facility, e.g.

		       printf( "%6D", ptr, ":" ); gives "XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX"

		       printf( "%*D", len, ptr, " " ); gives "XX XX XX ..."

CHARACTER TESTS AND CONVERSIONS

     int isupper(int c)

     int islower(int c)

     int isspace(int c)

     int isdigit(int c)

     int isxdigit(int c)

     int isascii(int c)

     int isalpha(int c)

     int toupper(int c)

     int tolower(int c)

FILE I/O

     int open(const char *path, int flags)

		 Similar to the behaviour as specified in open(2), except that
		 file creation is not supported, so the mode parameter is not
		 required.  The flags argument may be one of O_RDONLY,
		 O_WRONLY and O_RDWR (although no file systems currently sup-
		 port writing).

     ssize_t write(int fd, void *buf, size_t len)

		 (No file systems currently support writing.)

     off_t lseek(int fd, off_t offset, int whence)

		 Files being automatically uncompressed during reading cannot
		 seek backwards from the current point.

     int stat(const char *path, struct stat *sb)

     int fstat(int fd, struct stat *sb)

		 The stat() and fstat() functions only fill out the following
		 fields in the sb structure:
		 st_mode,st_nlink,st_uid,st_gid,st_size.  The tftp file system
		 cannot provide meaningful values for this call, and the
		 cd9660 file system always reports files having uid/gid of
		 zero.

PAGER

     The libstand library supplies a simple internal pager to ease reading the
     output of large commands.

     void pager_open()

		 Initialises the pager and tells it that the next line output
		 will be the top of the display.  The environment variable
		 LINES is consulted to determine the number of lines to be
		 displayed before pausing.

     void pager_close(void)

		 Closes the pager.

     int pager_output(char *lines)

		 Sends the lines in the NUL-terminated buffer at lines to the
		 pager.  Newline characters are counted in order to determine
		 the number of lines being output (wrapped lines are not
		 accounted for).  The pager_output() function will return zero
		 when all of the lines have been output, or nonzero if the
		 display was paused and the user elected to quit.

     int pager_file(char *fname)

		 Attempts to open and display the file fname.  Returns -1 on
		 error, 0 at EOF, or 1 if the user elects to quit while read-
		 ing.

MISC

     void twiddle(void)

		 Successive calls emit the characters in the sequence |,/,-,\
		 followed by a backspace in order to provide reassurance to
		 the user.

     The heap must be established before calling alloc() or open() by calling
     setheap().  Heap usage will vary depending on the number of simultane-
     ously open files, as well as client behaviour.  Automatic decompression
     will allocate more than 64K of data per open file.

     Console access is performed via the getchar(), putchar() and ischar()
     functions detailed below.

     Device access is initiated via devopen() and is performed through the
     dv_strategy(), dv_ioctl() and dv_close() functions in the device switch
     structure that devopen() returns.

     The consumer must provide the following support functions:

     int getchar(void)

		 Return a character from the console, used by gets(), ngets()
		 and pager functions.

     int ischar(void)

		 Returns nonzero if a character is waiting from the console.

     void putchar(int)

		 Write a character to the console, used by gets(), ngets(),
		 *printf(), panic() and twiddle() and thus by many other func-
		 tions for debugging and informational output.

     int devopen(struct open_file *of, const char *name, char **file)

		 Open the appropriate device for the file named in name,
		 returning in file a pointer to the remaining body of name
		 which does not refer to the device.  The f_dev field in of
		 will be set to point to the devsw structure for the opened
		 device if successful.	Device identifiers must always precede
		 the path component, but may otherwise be arbitrarily format-
		 ted.  Used by open() and thus for all device-related I/O.

     int devclose(struct open_file *of) Close the device allocated for of.
		 The device driver itself will already have been called for
		 the close; this call should clean up any allocation made by
		 devopen only.

     void panic(const char *msg, ...)

		 Signal a fatal and unrecoverable error condition.  The msg
		 ... arguments are as for printf().

INTERNAL FILE SYSTEMS

     Internal file systems are enabled by the consumer exporting the array
     struct fs_ops *file_system[], which should be initialised with pointers
     to struct fs_ops structures.  The following file system handlers are sup-
     plied by libstand, the consumer may supply other file systems of their
     own:

     ufs_fsops	   The BSD UFS.

     gzipfs_fsops  Stacked file system supporting gzipped files.  When trying
		   the gzipfs file system, libstand appends .gz to the end of
		   the filename, and then tries to locate the file using the
		   other file systems.	Placement of this file system in the
		   file_system[] array determines whether gzipped files will
		   be opened in preference to non-gzipped files.  It is only
		   possible to seek a gzipped file forwards, and stat() and
		   fstat() on gzipped files will report an invalid length.

     bzipfs_fsops  The same as gzipfs_fsops, but for bzip2(1)-compressed
		   files.

     The array of struct fs_ops pointers should be terminated with a NULL.

DEVICES

     Devices are exported by the supporting code via the array struct devsw
     *devsw[] which is a NULL terminated array of pointers to device switch
     structures.

BUGS

     The lack of detailed memory usage data is unhelpful.

HISTORY

     The libstand library contains contributions from many sources, including:
     o	 libsa from NetBSD
     o	 libc and libkern from FreeBSD 3.0.
     o	 zalloc from Matthew Dillon <dillon@backplane.com>

     The reorganisation and port to FreeBSD 3.0, the environment functions and
     this manpage were written by Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.org>.

FreeBSD 5.4			August 6, 2004			   FreeBSD 5.4

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