To use it, compile makestream.c and link the object with your program. On a recent GNU/Linux machine the object file will be empty (the open_memstream() function is part of libc). On anything derived from 4.4BSD (Darwin, the Three BSDs, etc.) it will contain an implementation of open_memstream() as described in the Linux manual pages. On anything else it will probably cause a compilation error.
Download the source code: memstream-0.1.tar.gz
Browse the source code: memstream-0.1
In lieu of a proper manual page, please accept this pilfered and slightly midofied version of the POSIX manual page.
NAME
open_memstream - open a dynamic memory buffer stream
SYNOPSIS
#include "memstream.h"
FILE *open_memstream(char **bufp, size_t *sizep);
DESCRIPTION
The open_memstream() function creates an I/O stream associated with a
dynamically-allocated memory buffer. The stream is byte-oriented, opened
for writing and seekable.
The stream maintains a current position in the allocated buffer and a
current buffer length. The position is initially set to zero (the start
of the buffer). Each write to the stream starts at the current position
and moves this position by the number of successfully-written bytes. The
length is initially set to zero. If a write moves the position to a
value larger than the current length, the current length is set to this
position. In this case a null character is appended to the current
buffer. The terminating null is not included in the calculation of the
buffer length.
After a successful fflush() or fclose(), the pointer referenced by bufp
contains the address of the buffer, and the variable pointed to by sizep
contains the current buffer length. During fclose() the current buffer
length is set to the smaller of the current buffer length and the number
of bytes between the beginning of the buffer and the current file
position indicator.
After a successful fflush() the pointer referenced by bufp and the
variable referenced by sizep remain valid only until the next write
operation on the stream or a call to fclose().
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, open_memstream() returns a pointer to the
object controlling the stream. Otherwise, a null pointer is returned,
and errno is set to indicate the error.
NOTES
After a successful fclose() the caller must reclaim the storage used by
the buffer, when it is no longer needed, by calling free().
ERRORS
[EINVAL]
bufp or sizep are NULL.
[ENOMEM]
Memory for the stream or the buffer could not be allocated.
memstream is distributed under the MIT license. It will not infect your project with a contagious disease if you decide to use it.
If you find bugs or have suggestions, please send them to Ian at the domain name of this web site. Thanks!