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FMTCHECK(3)           DragonFly Library Functions Manual           FMTCHECK(3)

NAME

fmtcheck -- sanitizes user-supplied printf(3)-style format string

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <stdio.h> const char * fmtcheck(const char *fmt_suspect, const char *fmt_default);

DESCRIPTION

The fmtcheck() scans fmt_suspect and fmt_default to determine if fmt_suspect will consume the same argument types as fmt_default and to ensure that fmt_suspect is a valid format string. The printf(3) family of functions cannot verify the types of arguments that they are passed at run-time. In some cases, like catgets(3), it is useful or necessary to use a user-supplied format string with no guaran- tee that the format string matches the specified arguments. The fmtcheck() was designed to be used in these cases, as in: printf(fmtcheck(user_format, standard_format), arg1, arg2); In the check, field widths, fillers, precisions, etc. are ignored (unless the field width or precision is an asterisk `*' instead of a digit string). Also, any text other than the format specifiers is completely ignored.

RETURN VALUES

If fmt_suspect is a valid format and consumes the same argument types as fmt_default, then the fmtcheck() will return fmt_suspect. Otherwise, it will return fmt_default.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

Note that the formats may be quite different as long as they accept the same arguments. For example, "%p %o %30s %#llx %-10.*e %n" is compatible with "This number %lu %d%% and string %s has %qd numbers and %.*g floats (%n)". However, "%o" is not equivalent to "%lx" because the first requires an integer and the second requires a long.

SEE ALSO

printf(3)

BUGS

The fmtcheck() function does not recognize positional parameters. DragonFly 3.5 October 16, 2002 DragonFly 3.5

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