Don't POSIX and portable C both require key=value? If so, isn't that more than just convention?
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I don't know about POSIX, but C doesn't mandate an implementation. The C Standard says about getenv():
Quote:
The getenv function searches an environment list, provided by the host environment, for a string that matches the string pointed to by name. The set of environment names and the method for altering the environment list are implementation-defined.
The implementation shall behave as if no library function calls the getenv function.
Returns
The getenv function returns a pointer to a string associated with the matched list member. The string pointed to shall not be modified by the program, but may be overwritten by a subsequent call to the getenv function. If the specified name cannot be found, a null pointer is returned.
End quote. The takeaway from me is that yes, environments do define a key/value store of some sort, but how they're implemented isn't stated. It can be an array of strings in "key=value" format stored in RAM, but it could just as well be a hash table stored in ROM.
Also, the specification of getenv does not exclude of having other data in environment that is just not retrievable by getenv but would be accessible e.g. through the third argument to main that is mentioned in the common extensions section.
Righto, I was considering Linux only, I don't personally care much for POSIX. I don't think ISO C standard sets any strong requirements. But yes, if you want maximum portability then you probably should be pretty conservative with environment.