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BZERO(3)              DragonFly Library Functions Manual              BZERO(3)


NAME

     bzero, explicit_bzero -- write zeroes to a byte string


LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)


SYNOPSIS

     #include <strings.h>

     void
     bzero(void *b, size_t len);

     void
     explicit_bzero(void *b, size_t len);


DESCRIPTION

     The bzero() function writes len zero bytes to the string b.  If len is
     zero, bzero() does nothing.

     The explicit_bzero() variant behaves the same, but will not be removed by
     a compiler's dead store optimization pass, making it useful for clearing
     sensitive memory such as a password.


SEE ALSO

     memset(3), swab(3)


STANDARDS

     The bzero() function conforms to the X/Open System Interfaces option of
     the IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 (``POSIX.1'') specification.  It was removed
     from the standard in IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (``POSIX.1''), which recommends
     using memset(3) instead.


HISTORY

     The bzero() function appeared in 4.3BSD.  Its prototype existed
     previously in <string.h> before it was moved to <strings.h> for IEEE Std
     1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') compliance.

     The explicit_bzero() function first appeared in OpenBSD / DragonFly 5.5.

DragonFly 5.5                   April 11, 2019                   DragonFly 5.5

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