path: root/share/man/man3/stdarg.3

.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" the American National Standards Committee X3, on Information
.\" Processing Systems.
.\"
.\" 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.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
.\"	This product includes software developed by the University of
.\"	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS 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 REGENTS 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.
.\"
.\"	@(#)stdarg.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd October 25, 2002
.Dt STDARG 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm stdarg
.Nd variable argument lists
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In stdarg.h
.Ft void
.Fn va_start "va_list ap" last
.Ft type
.Fn va_arg "va_list ap" type
.Ft void
.Fn va_copy "va_list dest" "va_list src"
.Ft void
.Fn va_end "va_list ap"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
A function may be called with a varying number of arguments of varying
types.
The include file
.In stdarg.h
declares a type
.Pq Em va_list
and defines three macros for stepping
through a list of arguments whose number and types are not known to
the called function.
.Pp
The called function must declare an object of type
.Em va_list
which is used by the macros
.Fn va_start ,
.Fn va_arg ,
.Fn va_copy ,
and
.Fn va_end .
.Pp
The
.Fn va_start
macro initializes
.Fa ap
for subsequent use by
.Fn va_arg
and
.Fn va_end ,
and must be called first.
.Pp
The parameter
.Fa last
is the name of the last parameter before the variable argument list,
i.e., the last parameter of which the calling function knows the type.
.Pp
Because the address of this parameter is used in the
.Fn va_start
macro, it should not be declared as a register variable, or as a
function or an array type.
.Pp
The
.Fn va_start
macro returns no value.
.Pp
The
.Fn va_arg
macro expands to an expression that has the type and value of the next
argument in the call.
The parameter
.Fa ap
is the
.Em va_list Fa ap
initialized by
.Fn va_start .
Each call to
.Fn va_arg
modifies
.Fa ap
so that the next call returns the next argument.
The parameter
.Fa type
is a type name specified so that the type of a pointer to an
object that has the specified type can be obtained simply by
adding a *
to
.Fa type .
.Pp
If there is no next argument, or if
.Fa type
is not compatible with the type of the actual next argument
(as promoted according to the default argument promotions),
random errors will occur.
.Pp
The first use of the
.Fn va_arg
macro after that of the
.Fn va_start
macro returns the argument after
.Fa last .
Successive invocations return the values of the remaining
arguments.
.Pp
The
.Fn va_copy
macro copies a variable argument list, previously initialized by
.Fn va_start ,
from
.Fa src
to
.Fa dest .
The state is preserved such that it is equivalent to calling
.Fn va_start
with the same second argument used with
.Fa src ,
and calling
.Fn va_arg
the same number of times as called with
.Fa src .
.Pp
The
.Fn va_copy
macro returns no value.
.Pp
The
.Fn va_end
macro handles a normal return from the function whose variable argument
list was initialized by
.Fn va_start .
.Pp
The
.Fn va_end
macro returns no value.
.Sh EXAMPLES
The function
.Em foo
takes a string of format characters and prints out the argument
associated with each format character based on the type.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
void foo(char *fmt, ...)
{
	va_list ap;
	int d;
	char c, *s;

	va_start(ap, fmt);
	while (*fmt)
		switch(*fmt++) {
		case 's':			/* string */
			s = va_arg(ap, char *);
			printf("string %s\en", s);
			break;
		case 'd':			/* int */
			d = va_arg(ap, int);
			printf("int %d\en", d);
			break;
		case 'c':			/* char */
			/* Note: char is promoted to int. */
			c = va_arg(ap, int);
			printf("char %c\en", c);
			break;
		}
	va_end(ap);
}
.Ed
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn va_start ,
.Fn va_arg ,
.Fn va_copy ,
and
.Fn va_end
macros conform to
.St -isoC-99 .
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
These macros are
.Em not
compatible with the historic macros they replace.
A backward compatible version can be found in the include
file
.In varargs.h .
.Sh BUGS
Unlike the
.Em varargs
macros, the
.Nm
macros do not permit programmers to
code a function with no fixed arguments.
This problem generates work mainly when converting
.Em varargs
code to
.Nm
code,
but it also creates difficulties for variadic functions that
wish to pass all of their arguments on to a function
that takes a
.Em va_list
argument, such as
.Xr vfprintf 3 .