GETHOSTNAME(3POSIX)

📦 version 2017a, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

🌸 GETHOSTNAME(3POSIX) — the POSIX Programmer's Manual, bestie edition 🌸

okay so this is gethostname, straight out of the POSIX Programmer's Manual, and it's literally just "hey what's this computer's name" but as a syscall-adjacent function. iconic behavior honestly.

💫 PROLOG 💫

so real talk before we start: this manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ — like, consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details on Linux behavior — or honestly the interface may not be implemented on Linux at all. no cap. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

gethostname — get name of current host

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <unistd.h>

int gethostname(char *name, size_t namelen);

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so the gethostname() function shall return the standard host name for the current machine. like, the actual name. the government name. 💅

the namelen argument shall specify the size of the array pointed to by the name argument. so basically you're telling it how much room you've got.

here's the tea though 🍵: the returned name shall be null-terminated, EXCEPT that if namelen is an insufficient length to hold the host name, then the returned name shall be truncated — and it is unspecified whether the returned name is null-terminated. so if you're too small for it, it gets chopped and nobody's promising you a nice little '\0' at the end. be careful bestie 😭

and host names are limited to {HOST_NAME_MAX} bytes. that's the ceiling, periodt.

🔥 RETURN VALUE 🔥

  • on a successful completion, 0 shall be returned ✨
  • otherwise, -1 shall be returned 💀

💀 ERRORS 💀

No errors are defined.

also the following sections are informative — just so you know which ones are the real ones and which ones are vibes.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

None. 😌 nothing to show, it's a mystery, we move.

💜 APPLICATION USAGE 💜

None. 🫶

🌸 RATIONALE 🌸

None. it just is. main character energy.

⭐ FUTURE DIRECTIONS ⭐

None. the future is uncertain but this section sure isn't. 🙈

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

  • gethostid()
  • uname()
  • The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, <unistd.h>

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 brought to you by IEEE/The Open Group, dated 2017, and no I will not stop being obsessed with it. bye mwah 🎀✨

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