The license rights do not need to be defined in a license file. They can be specified as a literal string anywhere a license file name can be used (such as in a license search path). The actual text of the license file is specified with START_LICENSE\n as a prefix, and \nEND_LICENSE as suffix, where the embedded new lines are required.

In the following license search path, the third component is a literal text string containing the actual feature definition line.

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setenv VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE file1: file2: START_LICENSE\n\
FEATURE f1 demo 1.0 permanent uncounted HOSTID=ANY \
VENDOR_STRING=\"Acme Inc\" SIGN=50A35101C0F3\n\
END_LICENSE

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The following example shows this usage in a call to the lc_set_attr function inside the application:

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lc_set_attr(job, LM_A_LICENSE_DEFAULT, (LM_A_VAL_TYPE)
"START_LICENSE\n\
FEATURE f1 demo 1.0 permanent \
uncounted HOSTID=ANY \
VENDOR_STRING=\”Acme Inc\" SIGN=50A35101C0F3\n\
END_LICENSE”);

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If all users for a particular software publisher have the same license file, it is convenient to store it in a character buffer in the program, rather than in a license file, which would require the publisher to distribute an extra file that might get misplaced.

For example, a library may be used to read a particular format file. If the file includes the name of the company that generated the data, a license can guarantee that only files generated by this company can be read by the library, by matching the name in the VENDOR_STRING=“...” field, (in conjunction with using lc_auth_data or LM_A_CHECKOUTFILTER).