manual: Correct description of ENTRY [BZ #17183]

The struct tag is actually entry (not ENTRY).  The data member has
type void *, and it can point to binary data.  Only the key member is
required to be a null-terminated string.

Reviewed-by: Arjun Shankar <arjun@redhat.com>
This commit is contained in:
Florian Weimer 2021-02-04 15:02:38 +01:00
parent c4ad832276
commit 2d8a22cdec
1 changed files with 15 additions and 11 deletions

View File

@ -326,24 +326,28 @@ used until the end of the program run.
Entries of the hashing table and keys for the search are defined using
this type:
@deftp {Data type} {struct ENTRY}
Both elements of this structure are pointers to zero-terminated strings.
This is a limiting restriction of the functionality of the
@code{hsearch} functions. They can only be used for data sets which use
the NUL character always and solely to terminate the records. It is not
possible to handle general binary data.
@deftp {Data type} ENTRY
@table @code
@item char *key
Pointer to a zero-terminated string of characters describing the key for
the search or the element in the hashing table.
@item char *data
Pointer to a zero-terminated string of characters describing the data.
If the functions will be called only for searching an existing entry
this element might stay undefined since it is not used.
This is a limiting restriction of the functionality of the
@code{hsearch} functions: They can only be used for data sets which
use the NUL character always and solely to terminate keys. It is not
possible to handle general binary data for keys.
@item void *data
Generic pointer for use by the application. The hashing table
implementation preserves this pointer in entries, but does not use it
in any way otherwise.
@end table
@end deftp
@deftp {Data type} {struct entry}
The underlying type of @code{ENTRY}.
@end deftp
@deftypefun {ENTRY *} hsearch (ENTRY @var{item}, ACTION @var{action})
@standards{SVID, search.h}
@safety{@prelim{}@mtunsafe{@mtasurace{:hsearch}}@asunsafe{}@acunsafe{@acucorrupt{/action==ENTER}}}