confstr - get configuration dependent string variables

#include <unistd.h>
size_t confstr(int name, char buf[.size], size_t size);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

    _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 2 || _XOPEN_SOURCE

confstr() gets the value of configuration-dependent string variables.

The name argument is the system variable to be queried. The following variables are supported:

_CS_GNU_LIBC_VERSION (GNU C library only; since glibc 2.3.2)

A string which identifies the GNU C library version on this system (e.g., "glibc 2.3.4").

_CS_GNU_LIBPTHREAD_VERSION (GNU C library only; since glibc 2.3.2)

A string which identifies the POSIX implementation supplied by this C library (e.g., "NPTL 2.3.4" or "linuxthreads-0.10").

_CS_PATH

A value for the PATH variable which indicates where all the POSIX.2 standard utilities can be found.

If buf is not NULL and size is not zero, confstr() copies the value of the string to buf truncated to size - 1 bytes if necessary, with a null byte ('\0') as terminator. This can be detected by comparing the return value of confstr() against size.

If size is zero and buf is NULL, confstr() just returns the value as defined below.

If name is a valid configuration variable, confstr() returns the number of bytes (including the terminating null byte) that would be required to hold the entire value of that variable. This value may be greater than size, which means that the value in buf is truncated.

If name is a valid configuration variable, but that variable does not have a value, then confstr() returns 0. If name does not correspond to a valid configuration variable, confstr() returns 0, and errno is set to EINVAL.

The following code fragment determines the path where to find the POSIX.2 system utilities:

char *pathbuf;
size_t n;
n = confstr(_CS_PATH, NULL, (size_t) 0);
pathbuf = malloc(n);
if (pathbuf == NULL)
    abort();
confstr(_CS_PATH, pathbuf, n);

getconf(1), sh(1), exec(3), fpathconf(3), pathconf(3), sysconf(3), system(3)