PROPERTIES(3)

NAME
properties_read, property_find, properties_free - functions to allow creating simple property lists from ASCII file data

LIBRARY
libutil

SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <libutil.h>
properties
properties_read(int fd);
char *
property_find(properties list, const char *name);
void
properties_free(properties list);

DESCRIPTION

    typedef struct _properties {
    	struct _properties *next;
    	char *name;
    	char *value;
    } *properties;

The function properties_read() reads name = value pairs from the file descriptor passed in fd and returns the head of a new property list, assuming that the file's contents have been parsed properly, or NULL in case of error.

The property_find() function returns the associated value string for the property named name if found, otherwise NULL. The value returned may be up to PROPERTY_MAX_VALUE bytes in length.

The properties_free() function is used to free the structure returned by properties_read() when it is no longer needed.

FILE FORMAT
Each property in the file is assumed to have the format of name = value where name is an alphanumeric string (and any punctuation not including the `=' character) and value is an arbitrary string of text terminated by a newline character. If newlines are desired, the entire value should be enclosed in { } (curly-bracket) characters. Any line beginning with a # or ; character is assumed to be a comment and will be ignored.

AUTHORS
Jordan Hubbard

BUGS
Simplistic.