NAME

fnpathfind - find a file in a list of directories

SYNOPSIS

#include <publib.h>

int fnpathfind(const char *path, const char *tgt,


                     char *res, size_t max);

DESCRIPTION

pathfind looks for a file in a list of directories. The argument `path' is a colon separated list of directories, typically the contents of an environment variable like PATH, MANPATH, or CDPATH. The function will go through the directories in the path and look in each directory for a file given in argument `target' until it finds it. Only an exact match is reported, no wild cards or globbing.

The names that are matched are formed by taking an element from the path and prepending it to target. An empty element means the current directory, as does the name ".".

The function returns -1 for failure (not found or error), or the total size for the full name (the full name may have been truncated when stored into result).

BUGS

The function uses dynamic memory allocation and may therefore fail due to insufficient memory.

It is not trivial to know in which directory the search ended. This makes is difficult to continue the search.

SEE ALSO

publib(3), fname(3)

AUTHOR

Lars Wirzenius (lars.wirzenius@helsinki.fi)