EXTATTR(3)              NetBSD Library Functions Manual             EXTATTR(3)

NAME
     extattr_namespace_to_string, extattr_string_to_namespace -- convert an
     extended attribute namespace identifier to a string and vice versa

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/extattr.h>

     int
     extattr_namespace_to_string(int attrnamespace, char **string);

     int
     extattr_string_to_namespace(const char *string, int *attrnamespace);

DESCRIPTION
     The extattr_namespace_to_string() function converts a VFS extended
     attribute identifier to a human-readable string.  The
     extattr_string_to_namespace() converts a human-readable string represent-
     ing a namespace to a namespace identifier.  Although a file system may
     implement arbitrary namespaces, these functions only support the
     EXTATTR_NAMESPACE_USER (``user'') and EXTATTR_NAMESPACE_SYSTEM
     (``system'') namespaces, which are defined in extattr(9).

     These functions are meant to be used in error reporting and other inter-
     active tasks.  For example, instead of printing the integer identifying
     an extended attribute in an error message, a program might use
     extattr_namespace_to_string() to obtain a human-readable representation.
     Likewise, instead of requiring a user to enter the integer representing a
     namespace, an interactive program might ask for a name and use
     extattr_string_to_namespace() to get the desired identifier.

RETURN VALUES
     If any of the calls are unsuccessful, the value -1 is returned and the
     global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
     [EINVAL]           The requested namespace could not be identified.

SEE ALSO
     getextattr(1), extattr_get_file(2), extattr(9)

HISTORY
     Extended attribute support was developed as part of the TrustedBSD
     Project, and introduced in FreeBSD 5.0 and NetBSD 3.0.  It was developed
     to support security extensions requiring additional labels to be associ-
     ated with each file or directory.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE               January 2, 2004              NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
