getauxval(3) man page for review

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk dot manpages at gmail dot com>]

Hello Richard et al,

I wrote a man page for the getauxval(3) function that you added in
glibc 2.16. Would you be willing to take a look and correct anything
that seems amiss?

Cheers,

Michael


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.TH GETAUXVAL 3  2012-11-05 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
getauxval \- retrieve a value from the auxiliary vector
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <sys/auxv.h>
.sp
.BI "unsigned long getauxval(unsigned long " type );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR getauxval ()
function retrieves values from the auxiliary vector,
a mechanism that the kernel's ELF binary loader
uses to pass certain information to
user space when a program is executed.

Each entry in the auxiliary vector consists of a pair of values:
a type that identifies what this entry represents,
and a value for that type.
Given the argument
.IR type ,
.BR getauxval ()
returns the corresponding value.

The value returned for each
.I type
is given in the following list.
Not all
.I type
values are present on all architectures.
.TP
.BR AT_BASE
The base address of the program interpreter (usually, the dynamic linker).
.TP
.BR AT_BASE_PLATFORM
A string identifying the real platform; may differ from
.BR AT_PLATFORM
(PowerPC only).
.TP
.BR AT_CLKTCK
The frequency with which
.BR times (2)
counts.
This value can also be obtained via
.IR sysconf(_SC_CLK_TCK) .
.TP
.BR AT_DCACHEBSIZE
The data cache block size.
.TP
.BR AT_EGID
The effective group ID of the thread.
.TP
.BR AT_ENTRY
The entry address of the executable.
.TP
.BR AT_EUID
The effective user ID of the thread.
.TP
.BR AT_EXECFD
File descriptor of program.
.TP
.BR AT_EXECFN
Pathname used to execute program.
.TP
.BR AT_FLAGS
Flags (unused).
.TP
.BR AT_FPUCW
Used FPU control word (SuperH architecture only).
This gives some information about the FPU initialization
performed by the kernel.
.TP
.BR AT_GID
The real group ID of the thread.
.TP
.BR AT_HWCAP
A pointer to a multibyte mask of bits whose settings
indicate detailed processor capabilities.
The contents of the bit mask are hardware dependent
(for example, see the kernel source file
.IR arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeature.h
for details relating to the Intel x86 architecture).
A human-readable version of the same information is available via
.IR /proc/cpuinfo .
.TP
.BR AT_ICACHEBSIZE
The instruction cache block size.
.\" .TP
.\" .BR AT_IGNORE
.\" .TP
.\" .BR AT_IGNOREPPC
.\" .TP
.\" .BR AT_NOTELF
.TP
.BR AT_PAGESZ
The system page size (the same value returned by
.IR sysconf(_SC_PAGESIZE) .
.TP
.BR AT_PHDR
The address of the program headers of the executable.
.TP
.BR AT_PHENT
The size of program header entry.
.TP
.BR AT_PHNUM
The number of program headers.
.TP
.BR AT_PLATFORM
A pointer to a string that identifies the hardware platform
that the program is running on.
The dynamic linker uses this in the interpretation of
.IR rpath
values.
.TP
.BR AT_RANDOM
The address of sixteen bytes containing a random value.
.TP
.BR AT_SECURE
Has a nonzero value if this executable should be treated securely.
Most commonly, a nonzero value indicates that the process is
executing a set-user-ID or set-group-ID program; alternatively,
a nonzero value may be triggered by a Linux Security Module.
When this value is nonzero,
the dynamic linker disables the use of certain environment variables (see
.BR ld-linux.so (8))
and glibc changes other aspects of its behavior.
(See also
.BR secure_getenv (3).)
.TP
.BR AT_SYSINFO
The entry point to the system call function in the VDSO.
Not present/needed on all architectures (e.g., absent on x86-64).
.TP
.BR AT_SYSINFO_EHDR
The address of a page containing the Virtual Dynamic Shared Object (VDSO)
that the kernel creates in order to provide fast implementations of
certain system calls.
.TP
.BR AT_UCACHEBSIZE
The unified cache block size.
.TP
.BR AT_UID
The real user ID of the thread.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success,
.BR getauxval ()
returns the value corresponding to
.IR type .
If
.I type
is not found, 0 is returned.
.SH ERRORS
No errors are diagnosed.
.SH VERSIONS
The
.BR getauxval ()
function was added to glibc in version 2.16.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
This function is a nonstandard glibc extension.
.SH NOTES
The primary consumer of the information in the auxiliary vector
is the dynamic linker
.BR ld-linux.so (8).
The auxiliary vector is a convenient and efficient shortcut
that allows the kernel to communicate a certain set of standard
information that the dynamic linker usually or always needs.
In some cases, the same information could be obtained by system calls,
but using the auxiliary vector is cheaper.

The auxiliary vector resides just above the argument list and
environment in the process address space.
The auxiliary vector supplied to a program can be viewed by setting the
.B LD_SHOW_AUXV
environment variable when running a program:

    $ LD_SHOW_AUXV=1 sleep 1

The auxiliary vector of any process can (subject to file permissions)
be obtained via
.IR /proc/PID/auxv ;
see
.BR proc (5)
for more information.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR secure_getenv (3),
.BR ld-linux.so (8)

The kernel source file
.IR Documentation/ABI/stable/vdso