Saturday, August 2, 2008

fgetln -- replacement for getline in BSD

I was wondering what was the equivalent getline function of linux in BSD, since I bought a mac and os x is using standard BSD library. I have been using fgets which is not as flexible as getline, but today I just realized that there is a fgetln function as well, and it's pretty much the same as the getline function in GNU Linux.


NAME
fgetln -- get a line from a stream

LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>

char *
fgetln(FILE *stream, size_t *len);

DESCRIPTION
The fgetln() function returns a pointer to the next line from the stream referenced by stream. This line is not a C string as it does not end with a terminating NUL character. The length of the line, including the final newline, is stored in the memory location to which len points. (Note, however, that if the line is the last in a file that does not end in a newline, the returned text will not contain a newline.)

RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion a pointer is returned; this pointer becomes invalid after the next I/O operation on stream (whether successful or not) or as soon as the stream is closed. Otherwise, NULL is returned. The fgetln() function does not distinguish
between end-of-file and error; the routines feof(3) and ferror(3) must be used to determine which occurred. If an error occurs, the global variable errno is set to indicate the error. The end-of-file condition is remembered, even on a terminal, and all subsequent
attempts to read will return NULL until the condition is cleared with clearerr(3).

The text to which the returned pointer points may be modified, provided that no changes are made beyond the returned size. These changes are lost as soon as the pointer becomes invalid.

ERRORS
[EBADF]                 The argument stream is not a stream open for reading.

The fgetln() function may also fail and set errno for any of the errors specified for the routines fflush(3), malloc(3), read(2), stat(2), or realloc(3).

SEE ALSO
ferror(3), fgets(3), fgetwln(3), fopen(3), putc(3)

HISTORY
The fgetln() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.