RSA_PRINT(3ossl)

📦 version 3.5.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

💅 RSA_PRINT(3ossl) — bestie's guide to printing crypto params

okay so this is page RSA_PRINT(3ossl) from the OpenSSL manuals, and before you get comfy: literally everything on this page is deprecated. not me delivering bad news in the first paragraph 😭 but you gotta know.

✨ NAME ✨

RSA_print, RSA_print_fp, DSAparams_print, DSAparams_print_fp, DSA_print, DSA_print_fp, DHparams_print, DHparams_print_fp — the whole girl gang that prints cryptographic parameters.

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <openssl/rsa.h>

The following functions have been deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0, and can be hidden entirely by defining OPENSSL_API_COMPAT with a suitable version value, see openssl_user_macros(7):

int RSA_print(BIO *bp, const RSA *x, int offset);
int RSA_print_fp(FILE *fp, const RSA *x, int offset);
#include <openssl/dsa.h>

The following functions have been deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0, and can be hidden entirely by defining OPENSSL_API_COMPAT with a suitable version value, see openssl_user_macros(7):

int DSAparams_print(BIO *bp, const DSA *x);
int DSAparams_print_fp(FILE *fp, const DSA *x);
int DSA_print(BIO *bp, const DSA *x, int offset);
int DSA_print_fp(FILE *fp, const DSA *x, int offset);
#include <openssl/dh.h>

The following functions have been deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0, and can be hidden entirely by defining OPENSSL_API_COMPAT with a suitable version value, see openssl_user_macros(7):

int DHparams_print(BIO *bp, DH *x);
int DHparams_print_fp(FILE *fp, const DH *x);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

🚨 vibe check, and it's not passing: all of the functions described on this page are deprecated. like, all of them. Applications should instead use EVP_PKEY_print_params(3) and EVP_PKEY_print_private(3). that's the main character now, these ones are retired.

So what did they even do? They print a human-readable hexadecimal output of the components of the RSA key, DSA parameters or key, or DH parameters. Where does it go? To bp or fp, bestie. pick your output.

And the little glow-up detail: the output lines are indented by offset spaces. cute, right? ✨

🦋 RETURN VALUES 🦋

Lowkey important, don't skip:

  • DSAparams_print(), DSAparams_print_fp(), DSA_print(), and DSA_print_fp() return 1 for success and 0 or a negative value for failure.
  • DHparams_print() and DHparams_print_fp() return 1 on success, 0 on error.

Note the difference, iykyk — the DSA crew can hand you a negative number, the DH girlies only do 1 or 0. 🙈

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

💜 HISTORY 💜

All of these functions were deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0. that's the whole story, periodt.

Copyright 2000-2020 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

okay that's the whole page, no cap 🫶 this was OpenSSL 3.5.0, dated 2026-09-25 — and yes she's still serving RSA_PRINT(3ossl) energy after all these years 💖 go use EVP_PKEY_print_params(3) instead tho, love u, bye 💅

📦 where this page comes from