---
name: "acl_to_text"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "acl"
version: "2.4.0-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/acl_to_text"
---

# acl\_to\_text(3)

convert an ACL to text

## NAME

**acl\_to\_text** – convert an ACL to text

## LIBRARY

Linux Access Control Lists library (libacl, -lacl).

## SYNOPSIS

**#include \<sys/types.h\>**

**#include \<sys/acl.h\>**

*char* *\**\

**acl\_to\_text**(*acl\_t acl*, *ssize\_t \*len\_p*);

## DESCRIPTION

The **acl\_to\_text**() function translates the ACL pointed to by the argument *acl* into a NULL terminated character string.  If the pointer *len\_p* is not NULL, then the function returns the length of the string (not including the NULL terminator) in the location pointed to by *len\_p*. The format of the text string returned by **acl\_to\_text**() is the long text form defined in [acl(5)](/acl/5.md). The ACL referred to by *acl* is not changed.

This function allocates any memory necessary to contain the string and returns a pointer to the string.  The caller should free any releasable memory, when the new string is no longer required, by calling [acl\_free(3)](/acl_free/3.md) with the *(void\*)char* returned by **acl\_to\_text**() as an argument.

## RETURN VALUE

On success, this function returns a pointer to the long text form of the ACL. On error, a value of (char \*)NULL is returned, and *errno* is set appropriately.

## ERRORS

If any of the following conditions occur, the **acl\_to\_text**() function returns a value of (char \*)NULL and sets *errno* to the corresponding value:

- \[EINVAL\]

  The argument *acl* is not a valid pointer to an ACL.

  The ACL referenced by *acl* contains one or more improperly formed ACL entries, or for some other reason cannot be translated into a text form of an ACL.

- \[ENOMEM\]

  The character string to be returned requires more memory than is allowed by the hardware or system-imposed memory management constraints.

## STANDARDS

IEEE Std 1003.1e draft 17 (“POSIX.1e”, abandoned)

## SEE ALSO

[acl\_free(3)](/acl_free/3.md), [acl\_from\_text(3)](/acl_from_text/3.md), [acl\_to\_any\_text(3)](/acl_to_any_text/3.md), [acl(5)](/acl/5.md)

## AUTHOR

Derived from the FreeBSD manual pages written by Robert N M Watson ⟨rwatson@FreeBSD.org⟩, and adapted for Linux by Andreas Gruenbacher ⟨andreas.gruenbacher@gmail.com⟩.