Orphaned Response

[rml]

> Subject: Re: Setting environment variables within a C program.
> 
> I don't know the "right" way, but one way is to copy the environ array
> pointers into a new array and make your change.  The reason you have to
> use a new array is in case the change you are making adds a variable to
> the environment.  If you are only resetting a variable, you just
> reassign that one pointer to the variable value.  The reason this is
> kludgey, of course, is that the space from the original environ becomes
> unusable garbage.  That is, I haven't the faintest idea how to return
> it (i.e.  free) to useful life.

Why is it a problem to copy the original array?  You only need to copy
the pointers (not the environment strings themsleves).  Even with a
hundred 4-byte pointers, this wastes all of 404 bytes (with the null
terminator).  The problem becomes even less significant when the
environment is being modified in preparation for a call to exec(2).

In answer to your question, I don't know of a general-purpose, portable
way to either avoid the copy or re-use the space.  One
non-general-purpose way would be in a case where the program was able to
find an entry in the original environment which it knew to be useless;
it could replace that pointer with one to the new entry.

			Bob lenk (hpfcla!rml)