SYNOPSIS

#include <getdata.h>

size_t gd_get_string(DIRFILE *dirfile, const char *field_code, size_t len, char *data_out);

DESCRIPTION

The gd_get_string() function queries a dirfile(5) database specified by dirfile for the string scalar field_code, which should not contain a representation suffix. The first len characters of the string scalar are stored in the user-supplied buffer data_out.

The dirfile argument must point to a valid DIRFILE object previously created by a call to gd_open(3).

If len equals zero, or if data_out equals NULL, no data will be copied to data_out, but the length of the string scalar will still be returned by gd_get_string(). Otherwise, the argument data_out must point to a valid memory location of sufficient size to hold at least len characters. If the length of the string scalar is greater than len, data_out will not be NULL-terminated.

RETURN VALUE

On success, gd_get_string() returns the actual length of the specified string scalar, including the trailing NULL character. A return value greater than len indicates that the output string is not null terminated.

On error, it returns 0 and sets the dirfile error to a non-zero value. Possible error values are:

GD_E_BAD_CODE

The field specified by field_code was not found in the database.

GD_E_BAD_DIRFILE

An invalid dirfile was supplied.

GD_E_BAD_FIELD_TYPE

The supplied field_code referred to a field of type other than STRING. The caller should use gd_getdata(3), or gd_get_constant(3) instead.

GD_E_BAD_TYPE

An invalid return_type was specified.

GD_E_INTERNAL_ERROR

An internal error occurred in the library while trying to perform the task. This indicates a bug in the library. Please report the incident to the maintainer.

The dirfile error may be retrieved by calling gd_error(3). A descriptive error string for the last error encountered may be obtained from a call to gd_error_string(3).