AUDIT_ENCODE_VALUE(3)

✨ AUDIT_ENCODE_VALUE(3) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the Linux Audit API corner of the man pages 💅 this one is genuinely so cute and so simple, let me put you on 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

audit_encode_value — turn your raw bytes into an uppercase ASCII hex string, no cap ✨

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <libaudit.h>

char *audit_encode_value(char *final, const char *buf, unsigned int size);

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so audit_encode_value() takes size bytes from buf and encodes them as an uppercase ASCII hexadecimal string 🦋 every single input byte gets written out as two hex digits. periodt.

and here's the part that's giving main character energy: the input does not have to be NUL-terminated, and it is totally allowed to contain embedded NUL bytes 🙈 so you can yeet whatever raw binary you want at it and it will not choke.

final is the output buffer that you, the caller, have to provide 💅 it has to be at least 2 * size + 1 bytes long — that's room for the encoded value plus its terminating NUL byte. don't forget the + 1, I'm begging 😭

size is the number of bytes to encode from buf — it is not necessarily the result of strlen(3), okay? don't come for me with strlen, that's literally not the vibe here.

if buf is NULL, audit_encode_value() just writes an empty string to final. graceful. iconic. ✨

e.g.:

• "foo bar" gets encoded as "666F6F20626172"
• "\1\2\3\4" gets encoded as "01020304"

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👑 RETURN VALUE 👑

returns final on success 🎉 if final is NULL, then NULL is what you get back. that's it, that's the whole deal.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• audit_encode_nv_string(3)
• audit_value_needs_encoding(3)

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🍓 AUTHOR 🍓

Steve Grubb — thank you king 🫶

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this page came to you courtesy of Red Hat, May 2026 💜 and that's the whole AUDIT_ENCODE_VALUE(3) moment, bestie — go encode something cute 🧚‍♀️🌸