endservent (original) (raw)

These functions shall retrieve information about network services. This information is considered to be stored in a database that can be accessed sequentially or randomly. The implementation of this database is unspecified.

The setservent() function shall open a connection to the database, and set the next entry to the first entry. If the_stayopen_ argument is non-zero, the net database shall not be closed after each call to the getservent() function (either directly, or indirectly through one of the other getserv*()functions), and the implementation may maintain an open file descriptor for the database.

The getservent() function shall read the next entry of the database, opening and closing a connection to the database as necessary.

The getservbyname() function shall search the database from the beginning and find the first entry for which the service name specified by name matches the s_name member and the protocol name specified by proto matches the_s_proto_ member, opening and closing a connection to the database as necessary. If proto is a null pointer, any value of the s_proto member shall be matched.

The getservbyport() function shall search the database from the beginning and find the first entry for which the port specified by port matches the s_port member and the protocol name specified by proto matches the_s_proto_ member, opening and closing a connection to the database as necessary. If proto is a null pointer, any value of the s_proto member shall be matched. The port argument shall be in network byte order.

The getservbyname(), getservbyport(), and getservent() functions shall each return a pointer to aservent structure, the members of which shall contain the fields of an entry in the network services database.

The endservent() function shall close the database, releasing any open file descriptor.

These functions need not be reentrant. A function that is not required to be reentrant is not required to be thread-safe.

Upon successful completion, getservbyname(), getservbyport(), and getservent() return a pointer to aservent structure if the requested entry was found, and a null pointer if the end of the database was reached or the requested entry was not found. Otherwise, a null pointer is returned.

The following sections are informative.

The port argument of getservbyport() need not be compatible with the port values of all address families.

The getservbyname(), getservbyport(), and getservent() functions may return pointers to static data, which may be overwritten by subsequent calls to any of these functions.

End of informative text.