lfind, lsearch - linear search of an array
Contents
Attributes
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
│ Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
│ lfind(), lsearch() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
Bugs
The naming is unfortunate.
Description
lfind() and lsearch() perform a linear search for key in the array base which has *nmemb elements of size
bytes each. The comparison function referenced by compar is expected to have two arguments which point
to the key object and to an array member, in that order, and which returns zero if the key object matches
the array member, and nonzero otherwise.
If lsearch() does not find a matching element, then the key object is inserted at the end of the table,
and *nmemb is incremented. In particular, one should know that a matching element exists, or that more
room is available.
History
POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD. libc-4.6.27.
Library
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
Name
lfind, lsearch - linear search of an array
Return Value
lfind() returns a pointer to a matching member of the array, or NULL if no match is found. lsearch()
returns a pointer to a matching member of the array, or to the newly added member if no match is found.
See Also
bsearch(3), hsearch(3), tsearch(3) Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-05-02 lsearch(3)
Standards
POSIX.1-2008.
Synopsis
#include<search.h>void*lfind(constvoidkey[.size],constvoidbase[.size*.nmemb],size_t*nmemb,size_tsize,int(*compar)(constvoid[.size],constvoid[.size]));void*lsearch(constvoidkey[.size],voidbase[.size*.nmemb],size_t*nmemb,size_tsize,int(*compar)(constvoid[.size],constvoid[.size]));