READDIR(2) Linux Programmer's Manual READDIR(2)

readdir - read directory entry

#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/dirent.h>

int readdir(unsigned int fd, struct dirent *dirp,
            unsigned int count);

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 This page documents the bare kernel system call interface, which can change, and which is superseded by getdents(2).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 referred to by the file descriptor fd into the buffer pointed to by dirp. The argument 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.

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

Invalid file descriptor fd.
Argument points outside the calling process's address space.
Result buffer is too small.
No such directory.
File descriptor does not refer to a directory.

This system call is Linux-specific.

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

getdents(2), readdir(3)

This page is part of release 3.09 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting documentation bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

2007-06-01 Linux

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