The format of the memory is a malloc()'d array of char pointers, the last element of which is set to NULL. Each of the non-NULL entries in this array point to a NUL terminated and malloc()'d char string of the form: "name=value".

It should be noted that this memory will never be free()'d by libpam. Once obtained by a call to pam_getenvlist, it is the responsibility of the calling application to free() this memory.

It is by design, and not a coincidence, that the format and contents of the returned array matches that required for the third argument of the execle(3) function call.