.TH PARSECMD 9
.SH NAME
parsecmd, cmderror, lookupcmd \- parse device commands
.SH SYNOPSIS
.ta \w'\fLCmdbuf* 'u
.B
Cmdbuf*	parsecmd(char *a, int n)
.PP
.B
void		cmderror(Cmdbuf *cb, char *s)
.PP
.B
Cmdtab*		lookupcmd(Cmdbuf *cb, Cmdtab *ctab, int nctab)
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Parsecmd
is an interface to
.I tokenize
(see
.IR getfields (2)),
that safely parses a command, with blank-separated fields, as might be
written to a device's
.B ctl
file.
The buffer
.I a
and count
.I n
can be those passed to the driver's
.I write
function.
.I Parsecmd
converts the byte array (which might not be null-terminated) to a null-terminated string,
trimming any trailing new line,
before invoking
.I tokenize
to break the string into arguments, interpreting blank and tab as field separators
when they are not quoted
(in the style of
.IR rc (1)).
It returns a pointer to a dynamically-allocated
.B Cmdbuf
structure,
which holds a copy of the string as
modified by
.IR parsefields ,
and the resulting fields; it is defined as follows:
.IP
.EX
.ta 6n +\w'char* 'u
typedef
struct Cmdbuf
{
	char	buf[128];
	char	*f[16];
	int	nf;
} Cmdbuf;
.EE
.PP
The array
.B f
holds the field pointers;
.B nf
gives the number of fields.
.B Cmdbuf
is allocated by
.I smalloc
(see
.IR malloc (9)),
and the caller is responsible for freeing it using
.IR free .
.I Cmderror
prepends the given format with the original command,
then calls
.IR error (9).
.PP
Command strings may be turned into a (typically enumerated)
integer with 
.IR lookupcmd .
The catchall
.L *
matches any text.  Unrecognized commands, or commands
given an unacceptable number of arguments generate a
call to
.IR error .
The definition is as follows
.IP
.EX
.ta 6n +\w'char* 'u
struct Cmdtab
{
	int	index;
	char	*cmd;
	int	narg;
};
.EE
.PP
The integer
.B index
is the number returned on command match.
The string
.B cmd
is the command name, and
.B narg
is 0 (indicating a varadic function) or the
number of arguments.
.SH SOURCE
.B /sys/src/9/port/parse.c
.br
.B /emu/port/dev.c