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.\"	@(#)stdarg.3	6.8 (Berkeley) 6/29/91

.\"

.\" Converted for Linux, Mon Nov 29 15:11:11 1993, faith@cs.unc.edu

.\" Additions, 2001-10-14, aeb

.\"

.TH STDARG 3  2017-09-15 "" "Linux Programmer's Manual"

.SH NAME

stdarg, va_start, va_arg, va_end, va_copy \- variable argument lists

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B #include <stdarg.h>

.PP

.BI "void va_start(va_list " ap ", " last );

.br

.IB type " va_arg(va_list " ap ", " type );

.br

.BI "void va_end(va_list " ap );

.br

.BI "void va_copy(va_list " dest ", va_list " src );

.SH DESCRIPTION

A function may be called with a varying number of arguments of varying

types.

The include file

.I <stdarg.h>

declares a type

.I va_list

and defines three macros for stepping through a list of arguments whose

number and types are not known to the called function.

.PP

The called function must declare an object of type

.I va_list

which is used by the macros

.BR va_start (),

.BR va_arg (),

and

.BR va_end ().

.SS va_start()

The

.BR va_start ()

macro initializes

.I ap

for subsequent use by

.BR va_arg ()

and

.BR va_end (),

and must be called first.

.PP

The argument

.I last

is the name of the last argument before the variable argument list, that is,

the last argument of which the calling function knows the type.

.PP

Because the address of this argument may be used in the

.BR va_start ()

macro, it should not be declared as a register variable,

or as a function or an array type.

.SS va_arg()

The

.BR va_arg ()

macro expands to an expression that has the type and value of the next

argument in the call.

The argument

.I ap

is the

.I va_list

.I ap

initialized by

.BR va_start ().

Each call to

.BR va_arg ()

modifies

.I ap

so that the next call returns the next argument.

The argument

.I type

is a type name specified so that the type of a pointer to an object that

has the specified type can be obtained simply by adding a * to

.IR type .

.PP

The first use of the

.BR va_arg ()

macro after that of the

.BR va_start ()

macro returns the argument after

.IR last .

Successive invocations return the values of the remaining arguments.

.PP

If there is no next argument, or if

.I type

is not compatible with the type of the actual next argument (as promoted

according to the default argument promotions), random errors will occur.

.PP

If

.I ap

is passed to a function that uses

.BI va_arg( ap , type ),

then the value of

.I ap

is undefined after the return of that function.

.SS va_end()

Each invocation of

.BR va_start ()

must be matched by a corresponding invocation of

.BR va_end ()

in the same function.

After the call

.BI va_end( ap )

the variable

.I ap

is undefined.

Multiple traversals of the list, each

bracketed by

.BR va_start ()

and

.BR va_end ()

are possible.

.BR va_end ()

may be a macro or a function.

.SS va_copy()

The

.BR va_copy ()

macro copies the (previously initialized) variable argument list

.I src

to

.IR dest .

The behavior is as if

.BR va_start ()

were applied to

.IR dest

with the same

.I last

argument, followed by the same number of

.BR va_arg ()

invocations that was used to reach the current state of

.IR src .

.PP

.\" Proposal from clive@demon.net, 1997-02-28

An obvious implementation would have a

.I va_list

be a pointer to the stack frame of the variadic function.

In such a setup (by far the most common) there seems

nothing against an assignment

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

va_list aq = ap;

.EE

.in

.PP

Unfortunately, there are also systems that make it an

array of pointers (of length 1), and there one needs

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

va_list aq;

*aq = *ap;

.EE

.in

.PP

Finally, on systems where arguments are passed in registers,

it may be necessary for

.BR va_start ()

to allocate memory, store the arguments there, and also

an indication of which argument is next, so that

.BR va_arg ()

can step through the list.

Now

.BR va_end ()

can free the allocated memory again.

To accommodate this situation, C99 adds a macro

.BR va_copy (),

so that the above assignment can be replaced by

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

va_list aq;

va_copy(aq, ap);

\&...

va_end(aq);

.EE

.in

.PP

Each invocation of

.BR va_copy ()

must be matched by a corresponding invocation of

.BR va_end ()

in the same function.

Some systems that do not supply

.BR va_copy ()

have

.B __va_copy

instead, since that was the name used in the draft proposal.

.SH ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see

.BR attributes (7).

.TS

allbox;

lbw21 lb lb

l l l.

Interface	Attribute	Value

T{

.BR va_start (),

.BR va_end (),

.BR va_copy ()

T}	Thread safety	MT-Safe

T{

.BR va_arg ()

T}	Thread safety	MT-Safe race:ap

.TE

.SH CONFORMING TO

The

.BR va_start (),

.BR va_arg (),

and

.BR va_end ()

macros conform to C89.

C99 defines the

.BR va_copy ()

macro.

.SH NOTES

These macros are

.I not

compatible with the historic macros they replace.

A backward-compatible version can be found in the include file

.IR <varargs.h> .

.PP

The historic setup is:

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

#include <varargs.h>

void

foo(va_alist)

    va_dcl

{

    va_list ap;

    va_start(ap);

    while (...) {

        ...

        x = va_arg(ap, type);

        ...

    }

    va_end(ap);

}

.EE

.in

.PP

On some systems,

.I va_end

contains a closing \(aq}\(aq matching a \(aq{\(aq in

.IR va_start ,

so that both macros must occur in the same function, and in a way

that allows this.

.SH BUGS

Unlike the

.B varargs

macros, the

.B stdarg

macros do not permit programmers to code a function with no fixed

arguments.

This problem generates work mainly when converting

.B varargs

code to

.B stdarg

code, but it also creates difficulties for variadic functions that wish to

pass all of their arguments on to a function that takes a

.I va_list

argument, such as

.BR vfprintf (3).

.SH EXAMPLE

The function

.I foo

takes a string of format characters and prints out the argument associated

with each format character based on the type.

.PP

.EX

#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdarg.h>

void

foo(char *fmt, ...)

{

    va_list ap;

    int d;

    char c, *s;

    va_start(ap, fmt);

    while (*fmt)

        switch (*fmt++) {

        case \(aqs\(aq:              /* string */

            s = va_arg(ap, char *);

            printf("string %s\en", s);

            break;

        case \(aqd\(aq:              /* int */

            d = va_arg(ap, int);

            printf("int %d\en", d);

            break;

        case \(aqc\(aq:              /* char */

            /* need a cast here since va_arg only

               takes fully promoted types */

            c = (char) va_arg(ap, int);

            printf("char %c\en", c);

            break;

        }

    va_end(ap);

}

.EE

.SH COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux

.I man-pages

project.

A description of the project,

information about reporting bugs,

and the latest version of this page,

can be found at

\%https://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.