explicit_bzero.3bsd - Man Page

write zeroes to a byte string

Library

library “libbsd”

Synopsis

#include <string.h> (See libbsd(7) for include usage.)
void
explicit_bzero(void *buf, size_t len);

Description

The explicit_bzero() function writes len zero bytes to the string buf. If len is zero, explicit_bzero() does nothing.

The explicit_bzero() variant behaves the same as the bzero() function, but will not be removed by a compiler's dead store optimization pass, making it useful for clearing sensitive memory such as a password.

See Also

bzero(3), memset(3), swab(3)

History

The explicit_bzero() function first appeared in OpenBSD 5.5, glibc 2.25.

Referenced By

reallocarray.3bsd(3).

January 22, 2014