NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ATTRIBUTES | CONFORMING TO | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

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

NAME         top

       lfind, lsearch - linear search of an array

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <search.h>
       void *lfind(const void *key, const void *base, size_t *nmemb,
                size_t size, int(*compar)(const void *, const void *));
       void *lsearch(const void *key, void *base, size_t *nmemb,
                size_t size, int(*compar)(const void *, const void *));

DESCRIPTION         top

       lfind() and lsearch() perform a linear search for key in the array
       base which has *nmemb elements of size bytes each.  The comparison
       function referenced by compar is expected to have two arguments which
       point to the key object and to an array member, in that order, and
       which returns zero if the key object matches the array member, and
       nonzero otherwise.
       If lsearch() does not find a matching element, then the key object is
       inserted at the end of the table, and *nmemb is incremented.  In
       particular, one should know that a matching element exists, or that
       more room is available.

RETURN VALUE         top

       lfind() returns a pointer to a matching member of the array, or NULL
       if no match is found.  lsearch() returns a pointer to a matching
       member of the array, or to the newly added member if no match is
       found.

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       ┌───────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │Interface          Attribute     Value   │
       ├───────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │lfind(), lsearch() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └───────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

CONFORMING TO         top

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.  Present in libc since
       libc-4.6.27.

BUGS         top

       The naming is unfortunate.

SEE ALSO         top

       bsearch(3), hsearch(3), tsearch(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest version of this page, can be found at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
GNU                              2015-08-08                       LSEARCH(3)

Pages that refer to this page: bsearch(3)hsearch(3)tsearch(3)