FGETMFS(3)                   UNIX System V(local)                    FGETMFS(3)


NAME
      fgetmfs - read an arbitrarily long, possibly continued line

SYNOPSIS
      #include <stdio.h>
      #include <fgetmfs.h>

      char *fgetmfs(stream, limit, cont)
      FILE *stream;
      int limit, cont;

      char *fgetms(stream)
      FILE *stream;

      char *cfgetms(stream)
      FILE *stream;

DESCRIPTION
      Fgetmfs reads an arbitrarily long line from stream, allocating memory via
      malloc(3) as needed.  If limit is non-negative, fgetmfs will read no more
      than limit bytes from stream.  For efficiency, if cont is not CONT_NO,
      such as CONT_NOSPC or CONT_SPC, occurrences of a backslash and a newline
      together and in that order will be deleted from the input stream; if cont
      is CONT_NOSPC, any whitespace after the newline in the input stream will
      also be deleted from it.

      The macros fgetms (to read without continuations) and cfgetms (to read
      with continuations and remove leading whitespace) should be used instead
      when the limit is not needed.

      Fgetmfs is intended to provide a reliable mechanism for reading input
      containing lines of arbitrary length, rather than trusting that no line
      with be longer than some arbitrary tolerance.

      The memory returned by fgetmfs should be returned when no longer needed
      via free(3).

SEE ALSO
      malloc(3), fgets(3)

DIAGNOSTICS
      Returns NULL (0) if memory cannot be allocated or upon reading end-of-
      file; use feof(stream) to distinguish.

HISTORY
      Written by Geoff Collyer at the University of Toronto as part of the C
      news project.

BUGS
      It's too slow.
      The meaning of the cont flag is ugly, but layering this form of
      continuation on top is even slower.


10/89                                                                    Page 1