NAME

       getprogname, setprogname — get or set the program name

LIBRARY

       Utility functions from BSD systems (libbsd, -lbsd)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdlib.h>
       (See libbsd(7) for include usage.)

       const char *
       getprogname(void);

       void
       setprogname(const char *progname);

DESCRIPTION

       The  getprogname() and setprogname() functions manipulate the name of the current program.  They are used
       by error-reporting routines to produce consistent output.

       The getprogname() function returns the name of the program.  If the name has not been set  yet,  it  will
       return NULL.

       The  setprogname()  function  sets  the  name  of  the  program  to be the last component of the progname
       argument.  Since a pointer to the given string is kept as the program name, it should not be modified for
       the rest of the program's lifetime.

       In FreeBSD, the name of the program is set by the start-up code that is run before main(); thus,  running
       setprogname()  is  not  necessary.   Programs  that  desire  maximum portability should still call it; on
       another operating system,  these  functions  may  be  implemented  in  a  portability  library.   Calling
       setprogname()  allows  the  aforementioned library to learn the program name without modifications to the
       start-up code.

SEE ALSO

       err(3), setproctitle(3bsd)

HISTORY

       These functions first appeared in NetBSD 1.6, and made their way into FreeBSD 4.4.

Debian                                             May 1, 2001                                 GETPROGNAME(3bsd)