home   contributing   bugs   download   online pages  

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON


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

NAME         top

       clearenv - clear the environment

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <stdlib.h>

       int clearenv(void);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       clearenv(): _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION         top

       The clearenv() function clears the environment of all name-value pairs and
       sets the value of the external variable environ to NULL.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The clearenv() function returns zero on success, and a non-zero value on
       failure.

VERSIONS         top

       Not in libc4, libc5.  In glibc since glibc 2.0.

CONFORMING TO         top

       Various Unix variants (DG/UX, HP-UX, QNX, ...).  POSIX.9 (bindings for
       FORTRAN77).  POSIX.1-1996 did not accept clearenv() and putenv(3), but changed
       its mind and scheduled these functions for some later issue of this standard
       (cf. B.4.6.1).  However, POSIX.1-2001 only adds putenv(3), and rejected
       clearenv().

NOTES         top

       Used in security-conscious applications.  If it is unavailable the assignment

           environ = NULL;

       will probably do.

       The DG/UX and Tru64 man pages write: If environ has been modified by anything
       other than the putenv(3), getenv(3), or clearenv() functions, then clearenv()
       will return an error and the process environment will remain unchanged.

SEE ALSO         top

       getenv(3), putenv(3), setenv(3), unsetenv(3), environ(7)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.23 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/.

Linux                                 2007-07-26                          CLEARENV(3)