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

NAME

       netlink - Netlink macros

SYNOPSIS

       #include <asm/types.h>
       #include <linux/netlink.h>

       int NLMSG_ALIGN(size_t len);
       int NLMSG_LENGTH(size_t len);
       int NLMSG_SPACE(size_t len);
       void *NLMSG_DATA(struct nlmsghdr *nlh);
       struct nlmsghdr *NLMSG_NEXT(struct nlmsghdr *nlh, int len);
       int NLMSG_OK(struct nlmsghdr *nlh, int len);
       int NLMSG_PAYLOAD(struct nlmsghdr *nlh, int len);

DESCRIPTION

       <linux/netlink.h> defines several standard macros to access or create a netlink datagram.  They are similar in spirit to the macros defined
       in cmsg(3) for auxiliary data.  The buffer passed to and from a netlink socket should only be accessed using these macros.

       NLMSG_ALIGN()
	      Round the length of a netlink message up to align it properly.

       NLMSG_LENGTH()
	      Given the payload length, len, this macro returns the aligned length to store in the nlmsg_len field of the nlmsghdr.

       NLMSG_SPACE()
	      Return the number of bytes that a netlink message with payload of len would occupy.

       NLMSG_DATA()
	      Return a pointer to the payload associated with the passed nlmsghdr.

       NLMSG_NEXT()
	      Get the next nlmsghdr in a multipart message.  The caller must check if the current nlmsghdr didn't have the NLMSG_DONE set --  this
	      function	doesn't  return  NULL  on end.	The len argument is an lvalue containing the remaining length of the message buffer.  This
	      macro decrements it by the length of the message header.

       NLMSG_OK()
	      Return true if the netlink message is not truncated and ok to parse.

       NLMSG_PAYLOAD()
	      Return the length of the payload associated with the nlmsghdr.

CONFORMING TO

       These macros are nonstandard Linux extensions.

NOTES

       It is often better to use netlink via libnetlink than via the low-level kernel interface.

SEE ALSO

       netlink(7)
       and ftp://ftp.inr.ac.ru/ip-routing/iproute2* for libnetlink

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 3.25 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
								    1999-05-14								NETLINK(3)