memfrob(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

memfrob(3)               Library Functions Manual              memfrob(3)

NAME         top

       memfrob - frobnicate (obfuscate) a memory area

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #define _GNU_SOURCE             /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <string.h>

       void *memfrob(size_t n;
                     void s[n], size_t n);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The memfrob() function obfuscates the first n bytes of the memory
       area s by exclusive-ORing each character with the number 42.  The
       effect can be reversed by using memfrob() on the obfuscated memory
       area.

       Note that this function is not a proper encryption routine as the
       XOR constant is fixed, and is suitable only for hiding strings.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The memfrob() function returns a pointer to the obfuscated memory
       area.

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       โ”Œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”
       โ”‚ Interface                            โ”‚ Attribute     โ”‚ Value   โ”‚
       โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
       โ”‚ memfrob()                            โ”‚ Thread safety โ”‚ MT-Safe โ”‚
       โ””โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”˜

STANDARDS         top

       GNU.

SEE ALSO         top

       bstring(3), strfry(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
       user-space interface documentation) project.  Information about
       the project can be found at 
       โŸจhttps://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/โŸฉ.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       โŸจhttps://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTINGโŸฉ.
       This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.18.tar.gz
       fetched from
       โŸจhttps://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/โŸฉ on
       2026-05-24.  If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
       version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-
       to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
       improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not
       part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Linux man-pages 6.18            2026-02-08                     memfrob(3)

Pages that refer to this page: bstring(3)strfry(3)