openssl/doc/man3/BN_new.pod
Hubert Kario 681acb311b doc: note that the BN_new() initialises the BIGNUM
BN_new() and BN_secure_new() not only allocate memory, but also
initialise it to deterministic value - 0.

Document that behaviour to make it explicit

Reviewed-by: Richard Levitte <levitte@openssl.org>
Reviewed-by: Rich Salz <rsalz@openssl.org>
(Merged from https://github.com/openssl/openssl/pull/4438)
2017-09-29 13:10:34 +02:00

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=pod
=head1 NAME
BN_new, BN_secure_new, BN_clear, BN_free, BN_clear_free - allocate and free BIGNUMs
=head1 SYNOPSIS
#include <openssl/bn.h>
BIGNUM *BN_new(void);
BIGNUM *BN_secure_new(void);
void BN_clear(BIGNUM *a);
void BN_free(BIGNUM *a);
void BN_clear_free(BIGNUM *a);
=head1 DESCRIPTION
BN_new() allocates and initializes a B<BIGNUM> structure.
BN_secure_new() does the same except that the secure heap
OPENSSL_secure_malloc(3) is used to store the value.
BN_clear() is used to destroy sensitive data such as keys when they
are no longer needed. It erases the memory used by B<a> and sets it
to the value 0.
BN_free() frees the components of the B<BIGNUM>, and if it was created
by BN_new(), also the structure itself. BN_clear_free() additionally
overwrites the data before the memory is returned to the system.
If B<a> is NULL, nothing is done.
=head1 RETURN VALUES
BN_new() and BN_secure_new()
return a pointer to the B<BIGNUM> initialised to the value 0.
If the allocation fails,
they return B<NULL> and set an error code that can be obtained
by L<ERR_get_error(3)>.
BN_clear(), BN_free() and BN_clear_free() have no return values.
=head1 SEE ALSO
L<ERR_get_error(3)>
=head1 HISTORY
BN_init() was removed in OpenSSL 1.1.0; use BN_new() instead.
=head1 COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2000-2017 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.
Licensed under the OpenSSL license (the "License"). You may not use
this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy
in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
L<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.
=cut