NAME¶

getprogname, setprogname — get and set program name

LIBRARY¶

library “libbsd”

SYNOPSIS¶

#include <stdlib.h> (See libbsd(7) for include usage.)
const char *
getprogname(void);

void
setprogname(const char *progname);

DESCRIPTION¶

The getprogname() returns a string with the current program name, excluding any directory component. The function will return NULL if it was unable to get the program name from any known source.

The setprogname() function sets the current program name, stripping any directory component prefix. The function will keep a reference to the passed string pointer, so it must not be freed or modified while these functions might be called.

The implementations on most BSDs will try to initialize the program name at program startup time, and libbsd will try to infer it from various known sources depending on the target system. But it is not a portable assumption that the program name will be set without calling setprogname(), so portable programs should always call it after starting up.

SEE ALSO¶

setproctitle(3bsd).

HISTORY¶

The setprogname() and getprogname() functions first appeared in NetBSD 1.6, FreeBSD 4.4, DragonFly 2.1 and OpenBSD 5.4.