Re: Portability issue with `putenv'

[Tim Van Holder]

Sam Lauber wrote:
> Ok, I give up!  Any way to copy said string is very 
> welcome.  If strcpy() does not do it's thing, what will?  

1) strcpy() does do its thing but it needs valid memory
   to copy the string to. Memory is typically allocated
   using malloc() and its ilk.
   So using

      char* t = (char*) xmalloc(strlen(s) + 1);
        strcpy(t, s);

   would do the trick.

2) As mentioned by James, even with the adjusted code, you
   introduce memory leaks for code that already malloc()s
   the string it passes to putenv(), as it has no way of
   free()ing the memory putenv() malloc()ed.

3) I'm not 100% sure, but I _think_ it is allowed to
   modify the string you passed to putenv later, and that
   such changes will have effect on future getenv() calls;
   that behaviour is broken by your version of putenv().
   Consider:

      char myenvvar[1024];
        snprintf(myenvvar, 1024, "%s=%s", "FOO", fooval1);
        putenv(myenvvar);
        /* getenv("FOO") returns fooval1 */
        snprintf(myenvvar, 1024, "%s=%s", "FOO", fooval2);
        /* getenv("FOO") returns fooval2 */
        snprintf(myenvvar, 1024, "%s=%s", "BAR", "XYZZY");
        /* getenv("FOO") returns NULL */
        /* getenv("BAR") returns "XYZZY" */

   This might not be allowed by POSIX though, and as such
   may itself not be portable, in which case it doesn't
   matter for the purpose of a portable putenv().