BN_CTX_new3ssl

Usage

 #include <openssl/bn.h>
 BN_CTX *BN_CTX_new_ex(OSSL_LIB_CTX *ctx);
 BN_CTX *BN_CTX_new(void);
 BN_CTX *BN_CTX_secure_new_ex(OSSL_LIB_CTX *ctx);
 BN_CTX *BN_CTX_secure_new(void);
 void BN_CTX_free(BN_CTX *c);

Overview

A BN_CTX is a structure that holds BIGNUM temporary variables used by library functions. Since dynamic memory allocation to create BIGNUMs is rather expensive when used in conjunction with repeated subroutine calls, the BN_CTX structure is used.

BN_CTX_new_ex() allocates and initializes a BN_CTX structure for the given library context ctx. The <ctx> value may be NULL in which case the default library context will be used. BN_CTX_new() is the same as BN_CTX_new_ex() except that the default library context is always used.

BN_CTX_secure_new_ex() allocates and initializes a BN_CTX structure but uses the secure heap (see CRYPTO_secure_malloc(3)) to hold the BIGNUMs for the given library context ctx. The <ctx> value may be NULL in which case the default library context will be used. BN_CTX_secure_new() is the same as BN_CTX_secure_new_ex() except that the default library context is always used.

BN_CTX_free() frees the components of the BN_CTX and the structure itself. Since BN_CTX_start() is required in order to obtain BIGNUMs from the BN_CTX, in most cases BN_CTX_end() must be called before the BN_CTX may be freed by BN_CTX_free(). If c is NULL, nothing is done.

A given BN_CTX must only be used by a single thread of execution. No locking is performed, and the internal pool allocator will not properly handle multiple threads of execution.

Return values

BN_CTX_new() and BN_CTX_secure_new() return a pointer to the BN_CTX. If the allocation fails, they return NULL and sets an error code that can be obtained by ERR_get_error(3).

BN_CTX_free() has no return values.

Removed functionality

 void BN_CTX_init(BN_CTX *c);

BN_CTX_init() is no longer available as of OpenSSL 1.1.0. Applications should replace use of BN_CTX_init with BN_CTX_new instead:

 BN_CTX *ctx;
 ctx = BN_CTX_new();
 if (!ctx)
     /* error */
 ...
 BN_CTX_free(ctx);