DESCRIPTION

UI stands for User Interface, and is general purpose set of routines to prompt the user for text-based information. Through user-written methods (see ui_create(3)), prompting can be done in any way imaginable, be it plain text prompting, through dialog boxes or from a cell phone.

All the functions work through a context of the type UI. This context contains all the information needed to prompt correctly as well as a reference to a UI_METHOD, which is an ordered vector of functions that carry out the actual prompting.

The first thing to do is to create a UI with UI_new() or UI_new_method(), then add information to it with the UI_add or UI_dup functions. Also, user-defined random data can be passed down to the underlying method through calls to UI_add_user_data. The default UI method doesn't care about these data, but other methods might. Finally, use UI_process() to actually perform the prompting and UI_get0_result() to find the result to the prompt.

A UI can contain more than one prompt, which are performed in the given sequence. Each prompt gets an index number which is returned by the UI_add and UI_dup functions, and has to be used to get the corresponding result with UI_get0_result().

The functions are as follows:

UI_new() creates a new UI using the default UI method. When done with this UI, it should be freed using UI_free().

UI_new_method() creates a new UI using the given UI method. When done with this UI, it should be freed using UI_free().

UI_OpenSSL() returns the built-in UI method (note: not the default one, since the default can be changed. See further on). This method is the most machine/OS dependent part of OpenSSL and normally generates the most problems when porting.

UI_free() removes a UI from memory, along with all other pieces of memory that's connected to it, like duplicated input strings, results and others.

UI_add_input_string() and UI_add_verify_string() add a prompt to the UI, as well as flags and a result buffer and the desired minimum and maximum sizes of the result. The given information is used to prompt for information, for example a password, and to verify a password (i.e. having the user enter it twice and check that the same string was entered twice). UI_add_verify_string() takes and extra argument that should be a pointer to the result buffer of the input string that it's supposed to verify, or verification will fail.

UI_add_input_boolean() adds a prompt to the UI that's supposed to be answered in a boolean way, with a single character for yes and a different character for no. A set of characters that can be used to cancel the prompt is given as well. The prompt itself is really divided in two, one part being the descriptive text (given through the prompt argument) and one describing the possible answers (given through the action_desc argument).

UI_add_info_string() and UI_add_error_string() add strings that are shown at the same time as the prompt for extra information or to show an error string. The difference between the two is only conceptual. With the builtin method, there's no technical difference between them. Other methods may make a difference between them, however.

The flags currently supported are UI_INPUT_FLAG_ECHO, which is relevant for UI_add_input_string() and will have the users response be echoed (when prompting for a password, this flag should obviously not be used, and UI_INPUT_FLAG_DEFAULT_PWD, which means that a default password of some sort will be used (completely depending on the application and the UI method).

UI_dup_input_string(), UI_dup_verify_string(), UI_dup_input_boolean(), UI_dup_info_string() and UI_dup_error_string() are basically the same as their UI_add counterparts, except that they make their own copies of all strings.

UI_construct_prompt() is a helper function that can be used to create a prompt from two pieces of information: an description and a name. The default constructor (if there is none provided by the method used) creates a string "Enter description for name:". With the description "pass phrase" and the file name "foo.key", that becomes "Enter pass phrase for foo.key:". Other methods may create whatever string and may include encodings that will be processed by the other method functions.

UI_add_user_data() adds a piece of memory for the method to use at any time. The builtin UI method doesn't care about this info. Note that several calls to this function doesn't add data, it replaces the previous blob with the one given as argument.

UI_get0_user_data() retrieves the data that has last been given to the UI with UI_add_user_data().

UI_get0_result() returns a pointer to the result buffer associated with the information indexed by i.

UI_process() goes through the information given so far, does all the printing and prompting and returns.

UI_ctrl() adds extra control for the application author. For now, it understands two commands: UI_CTRL_PRINT_ERRORS, which makes UI_process() print the OpenSSL error stack as part of processing the UI, and UI_CTRL_IS_REDOABLE, which returns a flag saying if the used UI can be used again or not.

UI_set_default_method() changes the default UI method to the one given.

UI_get_default_method() returns a pointer to the current default UI method.

UI_get_method() returns the UI method associated with a given UI.

UI_set_method() changes the UI method associated with a given UI.

SEE ALSO

ui_create(3), ui_compat(3)

HISTORY

The UI section was first introduced in OpenSSL 0.9.7.

AUTHOR

Richard Levitte (richard@levitte.org) for the OpenSSL project (http://www.openssl.org).