GETLINE(3) Linux Programmer's Manual GETLINE(3)
NAME
getline, getdelim - delimited string input
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
ssize_t getline(char **lineptr, size_t *n, FILE *stream);
ssize_t getdelim(char **lineptr, size_t *n, int delim, FILE *stream);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
getline(), getdelim():
Since glibc 2.10:
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
Before glibc 2.10:
_GNU_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
getline() reads an entire line from stream, storing the address of the buffer containing the text into *lineptr. The buffer is null-termi-
nated and includes the newline character, if one was found.
If *lineptr is set to NULL and *n is set 0 before the call, then getline() will allocate a buffer for storing the line. This buffer should
be freed by the user program even if getline() failed.
Alternatively, before calling getline(), *lineptr can contain a pointer to a malloc(3)-allocated buffer *n bytes in size. If the buffer is
not large enough to hold the line, getline() resizes it with realloc(3), updating *lineptr and *n as necessary.
In either case, on a successful call, *lineptr and *n will be updated to reflect the buffer address and allocated size respectively.
getdelim() works like getline(), except that a line delimiter other than newline can be specified as the delimiter argument. As with get-
line(), a delimiter character is not added if one was not present in the input before end of file was reached.
RETURN VALUE
On success, getline() and getdelim() return the number of characters read, including the delimiter character, but not including the termi-
nating null byte ('