SETALIASENT(3) Linux Programmer's Manual SETALIASENT(3)

NAME
       setaliasent,  endaliasent,  getaliasent, getaliasentr, getaliasbyname,
       getaliasbynamer - read an alias entry

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       void setaliasent(void);

       void endaliasent(void);

       struct aliasent *getaliasent(void);

       int getaliasentr(struct aliasent *result,
               char *buffer, sizet buflen, struct aliasent **res);

       struct aliasent *getaliasbyname(const char *name);

       int getaliasbynamer(const char *name, struct aliasent *result,
               char *buffer, sizet buflen, struct aliasent **res);

DESCRIPTION
       One of the databases available with the Name Service  Switch  (NSS)  is
       the  aliases  database, that contains mail aliases.  (To find out which
       databases are supported, try getent help.)  Six  functions  are  pro‐
       vided to access the aliases database.

       The  getaliasent() function returns a pointer to a structure containing
       the group information from the aliases database.  The first time it  is
       called  it  returns  the first entry; thereafter, it returns successive
       entries.

       The setaliasent() function rewinds the file pointer to the beginning of
       the aliases database.

       The endaliasent() function closes the aliases database.

       getaliasentr() is the reentrant version of the previous function.  The
       requested structure is stored via the first argument but the programmer
       needs  to  fill  the  other arguments also.  Not providing enough space
       causes the function to fail.

       The function getaliasbyname() takes the name argument and searches  the
       aliases  database.   The  entry  is  returned  as a pointer to a struct
       aliasent.

       getaliasbynamer() is the reentrant version of the  previous  function.
       The  requested structure is stored via the second argument but the pro‐
       grammer needs to fill the other arguments also.  Not  providing  enough
       space causes the function to fail.

       The struct aliasent is defined in :

           struct aliasent {
               char    *aliasname;             /* alias name */
               sizet   aliasmemberslen;
               char   **aliasmembers;          /* alias name list */
               int      aliaslocal;
           };

RETURN VALUE
       The  functions  getaliasentr() and getaliasbynamer() return a nonzero
       value on error.

FILES
       The default alias database is  the  file  /etc/aliases.   This  can  be
       changed in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

CONFORMING TO
       These  routines  are  glibc-specific.  The NeXT system has similar rou‐
       tines:

           #include 

           void aliassetent(void);
           void aliasendent(void);
           aliasent *aliasgetent(void);
           aliasent *aliasgetbyname(char *name);

EXAMPLE
       The following example compiles with gcc example.c -o example.  It  will
       dump all names in the alias database.

       #include 
       #include 
       #include 
       #include 

       int
       main(void)
       {
           struct aliasent *al;
           setaliasent();
           for (;;) {
               al = getaliasent();
               if (al == NULL)
                   break;
               printf("Name: %s\n", al->aliasname);
           }
           if (errno) {
               perror("reading alias");
               exit(EXITFAILURE);
           }
           endaliasent();
           exit(EXITSUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO
       getgrent(3), getpwent(3), getspent(3), aliases(5)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.53 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU                               2003-09-09                    SETALIASENT(3)