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.\" Hey Emacs! This file is -*- nroff -*- source.
.\" Copyright 1995 Jim Van Zandt <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
.\"
.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not
.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
.\" professionally.
.\"
.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
.\"
.\" Corrected prototype and include, aeb, 990927
.TH LSEARCH 3 1999-09-27 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
lfind, lsearch \- linear search of an array
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <search.h>
.sp
.BI "void *lfind(const void *" key ", const void *" base ", size_t *" nmemb ,
.BI " size_t " size ", int(*" compar ")(const void *, const void *));"
.sp
.BI "void *lsearch(const void *" key ", void *" base ", size_t *" nmemb ,
.BI " size_t " size ", int(*" compar ")(const void *, const void *));"
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR lfind ()
and
.BR lsearch ()
perform a linear search for
\fIkey\fP in the array \fIbase\fP which has \fI*nmemb\fP elements of
\fIsize\fP bytes each.
The comparison function referenced by
\fIcompar\fP is expected to have two arguments which point to the
\fIkey\fP object and to an array member, in that order, and which
returns zero if the \fIkey\fP object matches the array member, and
nonzero otherwise.
.PP
If
.BR lsearch ()
does not find a matching element, then the \fIkey\fP
object is inserted at the end of the table, and \fI*nmemb\fP is
incremented.
In particular, one should know that a matching element
exists, or that more room is available.
.SH RETURN VALUE
.BR lfind ()
returns a pointer to a matching member of the array, or
NULL if no match is found.
.BR lsearch ()
returns a pointer to
a matching member of the array, or to the newly added member if no
match is found.
.SH CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
Present in libc since libc-4.6.27.
.SH BUGS
The naming is unfortunate.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR bsearch (3),
.BR hsearch (3),
.BR tsearch (3)
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