UNVIS(3)                NetBSD Library Functions Manual               UNVIS(3)

NAME
     unvis, strunvis -- decode a visual representation of characters

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <vis.h>

     int
     unvis(char *cp, int c, int *astate, int flag);

     int
     strunvis(char *dst, const char *src);

     int
     strunvisx(char *dst, const char *src, int flag);

DESCRIPTION
     The unvis(), strunvis() and strunvisx() functions are used to decode a
     visual representation of characters, as produced by the vis(3) function,
     back into the original form.

     The unvis() function is called with successive characters in c until a
     valid sequence is recognized, at which time the decoded character is
     available at the character pointed to by cp.

     The strunvis() function decodes the characters pointed to by src into the
     buffer pointed to by dst.  The strunvis() function simply copies src to
     dst, decoding any escape sequences along the way, and returns the number
     of characters placed into dst, or -1 if an invalid escape sequence was
     detected.  The size of dst should be equal to the size of src (that is,
     no expansion takes place during decoding).

     The strunvisx() function does the same as the strunvis() function, but it
     allows you to add a flag that specifies the style the string src is
     encoded with.  Currently, the only supported flag is VIS_HTTPSTYLE.

     The unvis() function implements a state machine that can be used to
     decode an arbitrary stream of bytes.  All state associated with the bytes
     being decoded is stored outside the unvis() function (that is, a pointer
     to the state is passed in), so calls decoding different streams can be
     freely intermixed.  To start decoding a stream of bytes, first initialize
     an integer to zero.  Call unvis() with each successive byte, along with a
     pointer to this integer, and a pointer to a destination character.  The
     unvis() function has several return codes that must be handled properly.
     They are:

     0 (zero)         Another character is necessary; nothing has been recog-
                      nized yet.

     UNVIS_VALID      A valid character has been recognized and is available
                      at the location pointed to by cp.

     UNVIS_VALIDPUSH  A valid character has been recognized and is available
                      at the location pointed to by cp; however, the character
                      currently passed in should be passed in again.

     UNVIS_NOCHAR     A valid sequence was detected, but no character was pro-
                      duced.  This return code is necessary to indicate a log-
                      ical break between characters.

     UNVIS_SYNBAD     An invalid escape sequence was detected, or the decoder
                      is in an unknown state.  The decoder is placed into the
                      starting state.

     When all bytes in the stream have been processed, call unvis() one more
     time with flag set to UNVIS_END to extract any remaining character (the
     character passed in is ignored).

     The flag argument is also used to specify the encoding style of the
     source.  If set to VIS_HTTPSTYLE, unvis() will decode URI strings as
     specified in RFC 1808.

     The following code fragment illustrates a proper use of unvis().

           int state = 0;
           char out;

           while ((ch = getchar()) != EOF) {
           again:
                   switch(unvis(&out, ch, &state, 0)) {
                   case 0:
                   case UNVIS_NOCHAR:
                           break;
                   case UNVIS_VALID:
                           (void)putchar(out);
                           break;
                   case UNVIS_VALIDPUSH:
                           (void)putchar(out);
                           goto again;
                   case UNVIS_SYNBAD:
                           errx(EXIT_FAILURE, "Bad character sequence!");
                   }
           }
           if (unvis(&out, '\0', &state, UNVIS_END) == UNVIS_VALID)
                   (void)putchar(out);

SEE ALSO
     unvis(1), vis(1), vis(3)

     R. Fielding, Relative Uniform Resource Locators, RFC1808.

HISTORY
     The unvis() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE              November 11, 2005             NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
