.\" Copyright (c) 2009 David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.org> .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/stdio/getline.3,v 1.2 2009/04/06 13:50:04 das Exp $ .\" .Dd March 29, 2009 .Dt GETLINE 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm getdelim , .Nm getline .Nd get a line from a stream .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In stdio.h .Ft ssize_t .Fn getdelim "char ** restrict linep" "size_t * restrict linecapp" "int delimiter" " FILE * restrict stream" .Ft ssize_t .Fn getline "char ** restrict linep" "size_t * restrict linecapp" " FILE * restrict stream" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn getdelim function reads a line from .Fa stream , delimited by the character .Fa delimiter . The .Fn getline function is equivalent to .Fn getdelim with the newline character as the delimiter. The delimiter character is included as part of the line, unless the end of the file is reached. The caller may provide a pointer to a malloc buffer for the line in .Fa *linep , and the capacity of that buffer in .Fa *linecapp ; if .Fa *linecapp is 0, then .Fa *linep is treated as .Dv NULL . These functions may expand the buffer as needed, as if via .Fn realloc , and update .Fa *linep and .Fa *linecapp accordingly. .Sh RETURN VALUES The .Fn getdelim and .Fn getline functions return the number of characters written, excluding the terminating .Dv NULL . The value \-1 is returned if an error occurs, or if end-of-file is reached. .Sh EXAMPLES The following code fragment reads lines from a file and writes them to standard output. The .Fn fwrite function is used in case the line contains embedded .Dv NUL characters. .Bd -literal -offset indent char *line = NULL; size_t linecap = 0; ssize_t linelen; while ((linelen = getline(&line, &linecap, fp)) > 0) fwrite(line, linelen, 1, stdout); .Ed .Sh ERRORS These functions may fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL Either .Fa linep or .Fa linecapp is .Dv NULL . .It Bq Er EOVERFLOW No delimiter was found in the first .Dv SSIZE_MAX characters. .El .Pp These functions may also fail for any of the errors specified for .Fn fgets and .Fn malloc . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr fgetln 3 , .Xr fgets 3 , .Xr malloc 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn getdelim and .Fn getline functions conform to .St -p1003.1-2008 . .Sh HISTORY These routines first appeared in .Fx 8.0 . .Sh BUGS There are no wide character versions of .Fn getdelim or .Fn getline .