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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | CONFORMING TO | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHONThe Linux Programming Interface


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.

CONFORMING TO         top

       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.  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 3.32 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                                   1999-09-27                           LSEARCH(3)

HTML rendering created 2010-12-03 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface

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