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BZERO(3) Library Functions Manual BZERO(3) NAME bzero, explicit_bzero -- write zeroes to a byte string LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <strings.h> void bzero(void *b, size_t len); void explicit_bzero(void *b, size_t len); DESCRIPTION The bzero() function writes len zero bytes to the string b. If len is zero, bzero() does nothing. The explicit_bzero() variant behaves the same, but will not be removed by a compiler's dead store optimization pass, making it useful for clearing sensitive memory such as a password. SEE ALSO memset(3), swab(3) HISTORY A bzero() function appeared in 4.3BSD. Its prototype existed previ- ously in <string.h> before it was moved to <strings.h> for IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 ("POSIX.1") compliance. The explicit_bzero() function first appeared in OpenBSD 5.5 and FreeBSD 11.0. IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 ("POSIX.1") removes the specification of bzero() and it is marked as LEGACY in IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 ("POSIX.1"). For portability with other systems new programs should use memset(3). FreeBSD 14.3 August 24, 2015 BZERO(3)
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | HISTORY
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