ARES_PARSE_SOA_REPLY(3)

💖 ARES_PARSE_SOA_REPLY 💖

okay bestie, pull up a chair, because today we're decoding the c-ares manual page for ares_parse_soa_reply(3) — it lives in the Library Functions Manual, and it's literally the moment a raw DNS SOA reply turns into actual usable data. no cap. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

ares_parse_soa_reply — bestie, this is the function that parses a reply to a DNS query of type SOA. it's giving translator energy. 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

so first you gotta include the header, always:

#include <ares.h>

and then the function itself, exactly like this:

int ares_parse_soa_reply(const unsigned char* abuf, int alen,
                         struct ares_soa_reply** soa_out);

look at that signature. gorgeous. 💅

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

okay so here's the tea. ares_parse_soa_reply takes the response to a query of type SOA and parses it into a struct ares_soa_reply. that's the whole glow-up. ✨

the parameters abuf and alen are the contents of the response — that's your raw bytes and how many of them there are.

the result? it gets stored in allocated memory, and a pointer to that memory gets stored into the variable pointed to by soa_out. very demure, very mindful, very pointer-to-a-pointer.

⚠️ real talk bestie: it is the caller's responsibility to free the resulting soa_out structure when it is no longer needed, using the function ares_free_data(3). do NOT forget this. memory leaks are not cute. 😭

and the structure ares_soa_reply contains the following fields:

struct ares_soa_reply {
     char *nsname;
     char *hostmaster;
     unsigned int serial;
     unsigned int refresh;
     unsigned int retry;
     unsigned int expire;
     unsigned int minttl;
};

seven fields. iconic. no notes. 👑

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🎀 RETURN VALUES 🎀

ares_parse_soa_reply can return any of the following values, so keep an eye on that return value like it's your situationship:

• ARES_SUCCESS — slay! the response was successfully parsed. 🥳
• ARES_EBADRESP — uh oh, the response was malformatted. 💀
• ARES_ENODATA — the response did not contain an answer to the query. it's giving empty inbox. 🙈
• ARES_ENOMEM — memory was exhausted. she's tired, your honor. 😭

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🦋 AVAILABILITY 🦋

this function was first introduced in c-ares version 1.9.0. so if you're on anything older, bestie, it's not there. periodt.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these too, they're part of the friend group:

• ares_query(3)
• ares_free_data(3)

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and that's the whole page, fr fr. this one was dated 29 May 2012 and it ships with c-ares — so go forth, parse that SOA, free that memory, and stay iconic. mwah. 💖🎀🫶