Manpages

FFS(3) BSD Library Functions Manual FFS(3)

NAME

ffs, ffsl, fls, flsl — find first or last bit set in a bit string

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, −lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <strings.h>

int

ffs(int value);

int

ffsl(long value);

int

fls(int value);

int

flsl(long value);

DESCRIPTION

The ffs() and ffsl() functions find the first bit set in value and return the index of that bit.

The fls() and flsl() functions find the last bit set in value and return the index of that bit.

Bits are numbered starting from 1, starting at the right-most (least significant) bit. A return value of zero from any of these functions means that the argument was zero.

SEE ALSO

bitstring(3)

HISTORY

The ffs() function appeared in 4.3BSD. Its prototype existed previously in <string.h> before it was moved to <strings.h> for IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (’’POSIX.1’’) compliance.

The ffsl(), fls() and flsl() functions appeared in FreeBSD 5.3.

BSD January 13, 2004 BSD