MAC_FREE(3)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1

💅 MAC_FREE(3) — free MAC label

ok so you're in the MAC_FREE(3) girlies club now, welcome 🎀 this is a page from the Library Functions Manual and it's literally about letting go of stuff (very main character of it honestly).

✨ NAME ✨

mac_free — free MAC label 💖

📚 LIBRARY 📚

Standard C Library (libc, -lc) — she lives in libc, bestie, no extra linking drama 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <sys/mac.h>

int
mac_free(mac_t label);

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so the mac_free() function frees the storage allocated to contain a mac_t. that's it. that's the whole vibe. you hand her a mac_t and she releases the memory, iconic behavior, no notes 🧚

⭐ RETURN VALUES ⭐

the mac_free() function always returns 0. always. no cap. 🎀

⚠️ WARNING: see the notes in the “BUGS” section regarding the use of this function. like seriously, go read that part, it's giving important 🔥

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

it's a whole friend group, go say hi 💜

💀 STANDARDS 💀

POSIX.1e is described in IEEE POSIX.1e draft 17. periodt 📜

🌈 HISTORY 🌈

Support for Mandatory Access Control was introduced in FreeBSD 5.0 as part of the TrustedBSD Project. slay, a classic 👑

🙈 BUGS 🙈

okay bestie this is the part where we pay attention 😭

POSIX.1e specifies that mac_free() will be used to free text strings created using mac_to_text(3). but — because mac_t is a complex structure in the TrustedBSD implementation, mac_free() is specific to mac_t, and must not be used to free the character strings returned from mac_to_text().

doing so may result in undefined behavior. and undefined behavior is not cute, it's not a vibe, and it will not slay. do not do it. fr fr 🚫💅

mwah, that's the whole page 🌸 — brought to you by the Debian build, dated October 26, 2025. go free your labels responsibly, ily 🫶💖

📦 where this page comes from