iOS Manual Pages

This document is a Mac OS X manual page. Manual pages are a command-line technology for providing documentation. You can view these manual pages locally using the man(1) command. These manual pages come from many different sources, and thus, have a variety of writing styles.

For more information about the manual page format, see the manual page for manpages(5).

LSEARCH(3)               BSD Library Functions Manual               LSEARCH(3)

NAME
     lfind, lsearch -- linear search and append

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <search.h>

     void *
     lfind(const void *key, const void *base, size_t *nelp, size_t width,
         int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));

     void *
     lsearch(const void *key, void *base, size_t *nelp, size_t width,
         int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));

DESCRIPTION
     The lsearch() and lfind() functions walk linearly through an array, com-paring comparing
     paring each element with the one to be sought, by means of a supplied
     comparison function.

     The key argument points to an element that matches the one that is
     searched.  The array's address in memory is denoted by the base argument.
     The width of one element (i.e., the size as returned by sizeof()) is
     passed as the width argument.  The number of valid elements contained in
     the array (not the number of elements the array has space reserved for)
     is given in the integer pointed to by nelp.  The compar argument points
     to a function which compares its two arguments and returns zero if they
     are matching, and non-zero otherwise.

     If no matching element was found in the array, lsearch() copies key into
     the position after the last element and increments the integer pointed to
     by nelp.

RETURN VALUES
     The lsearch() and lfind() functions return a pointer to the first element
     found.  If no element was found, lsearch() returns a pointer to the newly
     added element, whereas lfind() returns NULL.  Both functions return NULL
     if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     bsearch(3), hsearch(3), tsearch(3)

HISTORY
     The lsearch() and lfind() functions appeared in 4.2BSD.  In FreeBSD 5.0,
     they reappeared conforming to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').

STANDARDS
     The lsearch() and lfind() functions conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
     (``POSIX.1'').

BSD                            October 11, 2002                            BSD