Name

readdir — read directory entry

Synopsis

#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/dirent.h>
int readdir( unsigned int   fd,
  struct dirent *  dirp,
  unsigned int   count);

DESCRIPTION

This is not the function you are interested in. Look at readdir(3) for the POSIX conforming C library interface. This page documents the bare kernel system call interface, which can change, and which is superseded by getdents(2).

readdir() reads one dirent structure from the directory pointed at by fd into the memory area pointed to by dirp. The parameter count is ignored; at most one dirent structure is read.

The dirent structure is declared as follows:

struct dirent {
  long   d_ino;
/* inode number */
  off_t   d_off;
/* offset to this dirent */
  unsigned short   d_reclen;
/* length of this d_name */
  char   d_name[NAME_MAX+1];
/* filename (null-terminated) */
};

d_ino is an inode number. d_off is the distance from the start of the directory to this dirent. d_reclen is the size of d_name, not counting the null terminator. d_name is a null-terminated filename.

RETURN VALUE

On success, 1 is returned. On end of directory, 0 is returned. On error, −1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

EBADF

Invalid file descriptor fd.

EFAULT

Argument points outside the calling process's address space.

EINVAL

Result buffer is too small.

ENOENT

No such directory.

ENOTDIR

File descriptor does not refer to a directory.

CONFORMING TO

This system call is Linux-specific.

NOTES

Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using syscall(2).

SEE ALSO

getdents(2), readdir(3)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 2.79 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.


  Copyright (C) 1995 Andries Brouwer (aebcwi.nl)

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Written 11 June 1995 by Andries Brouwer <aebcwi.nl>
Modified 22 July 1995 by Michael Chastain <mecduracef.shout.net>:
  In 1.3.X, returns only one entry each time; return value is different.
Modified 2004-12-01, mtk, fixed headers listed in SYNOPSIS