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getprotoent(3)             Library Functions Manual             getprotoent(3)

NAME
       getprotoent, getprotobyname, getprotobynumber, setprotoent, endprotoent
       - get protocol entry

LIBRARY
       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <netdb.h>

       struct protoent *getprotoent(void);

       struct protoent *getprotobyname(const char *name);
       struct protoent *getprotobynumber(int proto);

       void setprotoent(int stayopen);
       void endprotoent(void);

DESCRIPTION
       The  getprotoent()  function  reads  the  next entry from the protocols
       database (see protocols(5)) and returns a protoent structure containing
       the broken-out fields from the entry.  A connection is  opened  to  the
       database if necessary.

       The  getprotobyname() function returns a protoent structure for the en-
       try from the database that matches the protocol name name.   A  connec-
       tion is opened to the database if necessary.

       The  getprotobynumber()  function  returns a protoent structure for the
       entry from the database that matches the  protocol  number  number.   A
       connection is opened to the database if necessary.

       The setprotoent() function opens a connection to the database, and sets
       the  next  entry  to the first entry.  If stayopen is nonzero, then the
       connection to the database will not be closed between calls to  one  of
       the getproto*() functions.

       The endprotoent() function closes the connection to the database.

       The protoent structure is defined in <netdb.h> as follows:

           struct protoent {
               char  *p_name;       /* official protocol name */
               char **p_aliases;    /* alias list */
               int    p_proto;      /* protocol number */
           }

       The members of the protoent structure are:

       p_name The official name of the protocol.

       p_aliases
              A NULL-terminated list of alternative names for the protocol.

       p_proto
              The protocol number.

RETURN VALUE
       The  getprotoent(),  getprotobyname(), and getprotobynumber() functions
       return a pointer to a statically allocated  protoent  structure,  or  a
       null pointer if an error occurs or the end of the file is reached.

FILES
       /etc/protocols
              protocol database file

ATTRIBUTES
       For  an  explanation  of  the  terms  used in this section, see attrib-
       utes(7).
       ┌────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────────────────────┐
       │ Interface          Attribute     Value                          │
       ├────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
       │ getprotoent()      │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:protoent        │
       │                    │               │ race:protoentbuf locale        │
       ├────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
       │ getprotobyname()   │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:protobyname     │
       │                    │               │ locale                         │
       ├────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
       │ getprotobynumber() │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:protobynumber   │
       │                    │               │ locale                         │
       ├────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
       │ setprotoent(),     │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:protoent locale │
       │ endprotoent()      │               │                                │
       └────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘

       In the above table, protoent in race:protoent signifies that if any  of
       the  functions  setprotoent(), getprotoent(), or endprotoent() are used
       in parallel in different threads of a program, then  data  races  could
       occur.

STANDARDS
       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY
       POSIX.1-2001, 4.3BSD.

SEE ALSO
       getnetent(3), getprotoent_r(3), getservent(3), protocols(5)

Linux man-pages 6.7               2023-10-31                    getprotoent(3)

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