BZERO(3) BSD Library Functions Manual BZERO(3)
NAME
explicit_bzero — write zeroes to a byte string
LIBRARY
Utility functions from BSD systems (libbsd, −lbsd)
SYNOPSIS
#include <bsd/string.h>
void
explicit_bzero(void *buf, size_t len);
DESCRIPTION
The explicit_bzero() function writes len zero bytes to the string buf. If len is zero, explicit_bzero() does nothing.
The explicit_bzero() variant behaves the same as the bzero() function, but will not be removed by a compiler’s dead store optimization pass, making it useful for clearing sensitive memory such as a password.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The explicit_bzero() function first appeared in OpenBSD 5.5.
BSD December 5, 2015 BSD