getconf(1p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

GETCONF(1P)             POSIX Programmer's Manual            GETCONF(1P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
       or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       getconf — get configuration values

SYNOPSIS         top

       getconf [-v specification] system_var

       getconf [-v specification] path_var pathname

DESCRIPTION         top

       In the first synopsis form, the getconf utility shall write to
       the standard output the value of the variable specified by the
       system_var operand.

       In the second synopsis form, the getconf utility shall write to
       the standard output the value of the variable specified by the
       path_var operand for the path specified by the pathname operand.

       The value of each configuration variable shall be determined as
       if it were obtained by calling the function from which it is
       defined to be available by this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 or by the
       System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017 (see the OPERANDS
       section). The value shall reflect conditions in the current
       operating environment.

OPTIONS         top

       The getconf utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume
       of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following option shall be supported:

       -v specification
                 Indicate a specific specification and version for which
                 configuration variables shall be determined. If this
                 option is not specified, the values returned correspond
                 to an implementation default conforming compilation
                 environment.

                 If the command:

                     getconf _POSIX_V7_ILP32_OFF32

                 does not write "-1\n" or "undefined\n" to standard
                 output, then commands of the form:

                     getconf -v POSIX_V7_ILP32_OFF32 ...

                 determine values for configuration variables
                 corresponding to the POSIX_V7_ILP32_OFF32 compilation
                 environment specified in c99(1p), the EXTENDED
                 DESCRIPTION.

                 If the command:

                     getconf _POSIX_V7_ILP32_OFFBIG

                 does not write "-1\n" or "undefined\n" to standard
                 output, then commands of the form:

                     getconf -v POSIX_V7_ILP32_OFFBIG ...

                 determine values for configuration variables
                 corresponding to the POSIX_V7_ILP32_OFFBIG compilation
                 environment specified in c99(1p), the EXTENDED
                 DESCRIPTION.

                 If the command:

                     getconf _POSIX_V7_LP64_OFF64

                 does not write "-1\n" or "undefined\n" to standard
                 output, then commands of the form:

                     getconf -v POSIX_V7_LP64_OFF64 ...

                 determine values for configuration variables
                 corresponding to the POSIX_V7_LP64_OFF64 compilation
                 environment specified in c99(1p), the EXTENDED
                 DESCRIPTION.

                 If the command:

                     getconf _POSIX_V7_LPBIG_OFFBIG

                 does not write "-1\n" or "undefined\n" to standard
                 output, then commands of the form:

                     getconf -v POSIX_V7_LPBIG_OFFBIG ...

                 determine values for configuration variables
                 corresponding to the POSIX_V7_LPBIG_OFFBIG compilation
                 environment specified in c99(1p), the EXTENDED
                 DESCRIPTION.

OPERANDS         top

       The following operands shall be supported:

       path_var  A name of a configuration variable. All of the
                 variables in the Variable column of the table in the
                 DESCRIPTION of the fpathconf() function defined in the
                 System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, without the
                 enclosing braces, shall be supported. The
                 implementation may add other local variables.

       pathname  A pathname for which the variable specified by path_var
                 is to be determined.

       system_var
                 A name of a configuration variable. All of the
                 following variables shall be supported:

                  *  The names in the Variable column of the table in
                     the DESCRIPTION of the sysconf() function in the
                     System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, except
                     for the entries corresponding to _SC_CLK_TCK,
                     _SC_GETGR_R_SIZE_MAX, and _SC_GETPW_R_SIZE_MAX,
                     without the enclosing braces.

                     For compatibility with earlier versions, the
                     following variable names shall also be supported:
                     POSIX2_C_BIND POSIX2_C_DEV POSIX2_CHAR_TERM
                     POSIX2_FORT_DEV POSIX2_FORT_RUN POSIX2_LOCALEDEF
                     POSIX2_SW_DEV POSIX2_UPE POSIX2_VERSION

                     and shall be equivalent to the same name prefixed
                     with an <underscore>.  This requirement may be
                     removed in a future version.

                  *  The names of the symbolic constants used as the
                     name argument of the confstr() function in the
                     System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, without
                     the _CS_ prefix.

                  *  The names of the symbolic constants listed under
                     the headings ``Maximum Values'' and ``Minimum
                     Values'' in the description of the <limits.h>
                     header in the Base Definitions volume of
                     POSIX.1‐2017, without the enclosing braces.

                     For compatibility with earlier versions, the
                     following variable names shall also be supported:
                     POSIX2_BC_BASE_MAX POSIX2_BC_DIM_MAX
                     POSIX2_BC_SCALE_MAX POSIX2_BC_STRING_MAX
                     POSIX2_COLL_WEIGHTS_MAX POSIX2_EXPR_NEST_MAX
                     POSIX2_LINE_MAX POSIX2_RE_DUP_MAX

                     and shall be equivalent to the same name prefixed
                     with an <underscore>.  This requirement may be
                     removed in a future version.

                 The implementation may add other local values.

STDIN         top

       Not used.

INPUT FILES         top

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       getconf:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
                 internationalization variables used to determine the
                 values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
                 of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of
                 sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
                 example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte
                 characters in arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
                 format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
                 standard error.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       Default.

STDOUT         top

       If the specified variable is defined on the system and its value
       is described to be available from the confstr() function defined
       in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, its value shall
       be written in the following format:

           "%s\n", <value>

       Otherwise, if the specified variable is defined on the system,
       its value shall be written in the following format:

           "%d\n", <value>

       If the specified variable is valid, but is undefined on the
       system, getconf shall write using the following format:

           "undefined\n"

       If the variable name is invalid or an error occurs, nothing shall
       be written to standard output.

STDERR         top

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

       None.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    The specified variable is valid and information about its
             current state was written successfully.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       None.

EXAMPLES         top

       The following example illustrates the value of {NGROUPS_MAX}:

           getconf NGROUPS_MAX

       The following example illustrates the value of {NAME_MAX} for a
       specific directory:

           getconf NAME_MAX /usr

       The following example shows how to deal more carefully with
       results that might be unspecified:

           if value=$(getconf PATH_MAX /usr); then
               if [ "$value" = "undefined" ]; then
                   echo PATH_MAX in /usr is indeterminate.
               else
                   echo PATH_MAX in /usr is $value.
               fi
           else
               echo Error in getconf.
           fi

RATIONALE         top

       The original need for this utility, and for the confstr()
       function, was to provide a way of finding the configuration-
       defined default value for the PATH environment variable. Since
       PATH can be modified by the user to include directories that
       could contain utilities replacing the standard utilities, shell
       scripts need a way to determine the system-supplied PATH
       environment variable value that contains the correct search path
       for the standard utilities. It was later suggested that access to
       the other variables described in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017
       could also be useful to applications.

       This functionality of getconf would not be adequately subsumed by
       another command such as:

           grep var /etc/conf

       because such a strategy would provide correct values for neither
       those variables that can vary at runtime, nor those that can vary
       depending on the path.

       Early proposal versions of getconf specified exit status 1 when
       the specified variable was valid, but not defined on the system.
       The output string "undefined" is now used to specify this case
       with exit code 0 because so many things depend on an exit code of
       zero when an invoked utility is successful.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       c99(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines,
       limits.h(0p)

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, confstr(3p),
       fpathconf(3p), sysconf(3p), system(3p)

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The
       Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
       Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
       obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                       GETCONF(1P)

Pages that refer to this page: poll.h(0p)stddef.h(0p)sys_types.h(0p)termios.h(0p)wchar.h(0p)c99(1p)fincore(1)fpathconf(3p)sysconf(3p)