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1.\" Copyright (C) 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
2.\"
93015253 3.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
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4.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
5.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
6.\" preserved on all copies.
7.\"
8.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
9.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
10.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
11.\" permission notice identical to this one.
c13182ef 12.\"
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13.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
14.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no
15.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
16.\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not
17.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
18.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
19.\" professionally.
c13182ef 20.\"
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21.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
22.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
4b72fb64 23.\" %%%LICENSE_END
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24.\"
25.\" References consulted:
26.\" Linux libc source code
27.\" Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
28.\" 386BSD man pages
29.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 16:09:49 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
30.\" Modified 11 June 1995 by Andries Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
31.\" Modified 22 July 1996 by Andries Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
24b31b7b 32.\" 2007-07-30 Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>, mtk:
c8f2dd47 33.\" Rework discussion of nonstandard structure fields.
30da9614 34.\" 2008-09-11, mtk, Document readdir_r().
fea681da 35.\"
460495ca 36.TH READDIR 3 2015-08-08 "" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
fea681da 37.SH NAME
15dd4fb5 38readdir, readdir_r \- read a directory
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39.SH SYNOPSIS
40.nf
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41.B #include <dirent.h>
42.sp
6dea120e 43.BI "struct dirent *readdir(DIR *" dirp );
15dd4fb5 44.sp
6dea120e 45.BI "int readdir_r(DIR *" dirp ", struct dirent *" entry \
15dd4fb5 46", struct dirent **" result );
fea681da 47.fi
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48.sp
49.in -4n
50Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
51.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
52.ad l
53.in
54.sp
55.BR readdir_r ():
503be136 56.RS 4
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57_POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 1 || _XOPEN_SOURCE || _BSD_SOURCE ||
58_SVID_SOURCE || _POSIX_SOURCE
503be136 59.RE
0f200f07 60.ad b
fea681da 61.SH DESCRIPTION
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62The
63.BR readdir ()
64function returns a pointer to a \fIdirent\fP structure
fea681da 65representing the next directory entry in the directory stream pointed
6dea120e 66to by \fIdirp\fP.
15dd4fb5 67It returns NULL on reaching the end of the directory stream or if
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68an error occurred.
69.PP
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70On Linux, the
71.I dirent
72structure is defined as follows:
73.PP
bd191423 74.in +4n
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75.nf
76struct dirent {
77 ino_t d_ino; /* inode number */
73f4bf1e 78 off_t d_off; /* not an offset; see NOTES */
a03d317b 79 unsigned short d_reclen; /* length of this record */
efb92ba1 80 unsigned char d_type; /* type of file; not supported
9ee4a2b6 81 by all filesystem types */
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82 char d_name[256]; /* filename */
83};
84.fi
bd191423 85.in
a03d317b 86.PP
4b3caf6f 87The only fields in the
fea681da 88.I dirent
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89structure that are mandated by POSIX.1 are:
90.IR d_name [],
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91of unspecified size, with at most
92.B NAME_MAX
f24e3a3a 93characters preceding the terminating null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq);
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94and (as an XSI extension)
95.IR d_ino .
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96The other fields are unstandardized, and not present on all systems;
97see NOTES below for some further details.
fea681da 98.PP
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99The data returned by
100.BR readdir ()
237dedac 101may be overwritten by subsequent calls to
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102.BR readdir ()
103for the same directory stream.
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104
105The
106.BR readdir_r ()
107function is a reentrant version of
108.BR readdir ().
109It reads the next directory entry from the directory stream
6dea120e 110.IR dirp ,
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111and returns it in the caller-allocated buffer pointed to by
112.IR entry .
113(See NOTES for information on allocating this buffer.)
114A pointer to the returned item is placed in
115.IR *result ;
116if the end of the directory stream was encountered,
117then NULL is instead returned in
118.IR *result .
47297adb 119.SH RETURN VALUE
6a5dd8b3 120On success,
60a90ecd 121.BR readdir ()
6a5dd8b3 122returns a pointer to a
c13182ef 123.I dirent
6a5dd8b3 124structure.
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125(This structure may be statically allocated; do not attempt to
126.BR free (3)
127it.)
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128If the end of the directory stream is reached, NULL is returned and
129.I errno
130is not changed.
131If an error occurs, NULL is returned and
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132.I errno
133is set appropriately.
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134
135The
136.BR readdir_r ()
137function returns 0 on success.
636036b6 138On error, it returns a positive error number (listed under ERRORS).
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139If the end of the directory stream is reached,
140.BR readdir_r ()
141returns 0, and returns NULL in
142.IR *result .
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143.SH ERRORS
144.TP
145.B EBADF
6dea120e 146Invalid directory stream descriptor \fIdirp\fP.
83417e69 147.SH ATTRIBUTES
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148For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
149.BR attributes (7).
150.TS
151allbox;
152lb lb lb
153l l l.
154Interface Attribute Value
155T{
83417e69 156.BR readdir ()
00650a14 157T} Thread safety MT-Unsafe race:dirstream
fa7acb92 158T{
83417e69 159.BR readdir_r ()
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160T} Thread safety MT-Safe
161.TE
47297adb 162.SH CONFORMING TO
cd693fc7 163POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
624c55e8 164.SH NOTES
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165Only the fields
166.I d_name
167and
168.I d_ino
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169are specified in POSIX.1.
170.\" POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008
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171The remaining fields are available on many, but not all systems.
172Under glibc,
173programs can check for the availability of the fields not defined
bf1c0ede 174in POSIX.1 by testing whether the macros
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175.BR _DIRENT_HAVE_D_NAMLEN ,
176.BR _DIRENT_HAVE_D_RECLEN ,
177.BR _DIRENT_HAVE_D_OFF ,
178or
0daa9e92 179.B _DIRENT_HAVE_D_TYPE
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180are defined.
181
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182The value returned in
183.I d_off
184is the same as would be returned by calling
185.BR telldir (3)
186at the current position in the directory stream.
187Be aware that despite its type and name, the
188.I d_off
9ee4a2b6 189field is seldom any kind of directory offset on modern filesystems.
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190.\" https://lwn.net/Articles/544298/
191Applications should treat this field as an opaque value,
192making no assumptions about its contents; see also
193.BR telldir (3).
194
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195Other than Linux, the
196.I d_type
197field is available mainly only on BSD systems.
0dd0df4e 198This field makes it possible to avoid the expense of calling
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199.BR lstat (2)
200if further actions depend on the type of the file.
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201If the
202.B _BSD_SOURCE
203feature test macro is defined,
204then glibc defines the following macro constants
205for the value returned in
237dedac 206.IR d_type :
624c55e8 207.TP 12
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208.B DT_BLK
209This is a block device.
624c55e8 210.TP
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211.B DT_CHR
212This is a character device.
58f362c3 213.TP
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214.B DT_DIR
215This is a directory.
216.TP
217.B DT_FIFO
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218This is a named pipe (FIFO).
219.TP
220.B DT_LNK
221This is a symbolic link.
222.TP
223.B DT_REG
224This is a regular file.
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225.TP
226.B DT_SOCK
008f1ecc 227This is a UNIX domain socket.
624c55e8 228.TP
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229.B DT_UNKNOWN
230The file type is unknown.
231.\" The glibc manual says that on some systems this is the only
232.\" value returned
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233.PP
234If the file type could not be determined, the value
0daa9e92 235.B DT_UNKNOWN
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236is returned in
237.IR d_type .
15dd4fb5 238
2250b3ee 239Currently,
efb92ba1 240.\" kernel 2.6.27
2250b3ee 241.\" The same sentence is in getdents.2
9ee4a2b6 242only some filesystems (among them: Btrfs, ext2, ext3, and ext4)
037f4132 243have full support for returning the file type in
efb92ba1 244.IR d_type .
2250b3ee 245All applications must properly handle a return of
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246.BR DT_UNKNOWN .
247
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248Since POSIX.1 does not specify the size of the
249.I d_name
c8f2dd47 250field, and other nonstandard fields may precede that field within the
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251.I dirent
252structure, portable applications that use
253.BR readdir_r ()
254should allocate the buffer whose address is passed in
255.IR entry
256as follows:
257.in +4n
258.nf
259
eb059156 260name_max = pathconf(dirpath, _PC_NAME_MAX);
62389489 261if (name_max == \-1) /* Limit not defined, or error */
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262 name_max = 255; /* Take a guess */
263len = offsetof(struct dirent, d_name) + name_max + 1;
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264entryp = malloc(len);
265
266.fi
267.in
268(POSIX.1 requires that
269.I d_name
270is the last field in a
271.IR "struct dirent" .)
47297adb 272.SH SEE ALSO
6a0f91cc 273.BR getdents (2),
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274.BR read (2),
275.BR closedir (3),
276.BR dirfd (3),
53eef14c 277.BR ftw (3),
15dd4fb5 278.BR offsetof (3),
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279.BR opendir (3),
280.BR rewinddir (3),
281.BR scandir (3),
282.BR seekdir (3),
0a4f8b7b 283.BR telldir (3)