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BZERO(3)	       FreeBSD 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 previously
     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 porta-
     bility with other systems new programs should use memset(3).

FreeBSD	13.0			August 24, 2015			  FreeBSD 13.0

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | HISTORY

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