.\" Copyright (C) 1995 Andries Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
+.\" and Copyright 2008, 2015 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
.\"
+.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
+.\" %%%LICENSE_END
.\"
.\" Written 11 June 1995 by Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>
.\" Modified 22 July 1995 by Michael Chastain <mec@duracef.shout.net>:
.\" Derived from 'readdir.2'.
.\" Modified Tue Oct 22 08:11:14 EDT 1996 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
-.TH GETDENTS 2 2008-10-28 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
+.\"
+.TH GETDENTS 2 2019-03-06 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
-getdents \- get directory entries
+getdents, getdents64 \- get directory entries
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.BI "int getdents(unsigned int " fd ", struct linux_dirent *" dirp ,
.BI " unsigned int " count );
+.BI "int getdents64(unsigned int " fd ", struct linux_dirent64 *" dirp ,
+.BI " unsigned int " count );
.fi
+.PP
+.IR Note :
+There is no glibc wrapper for
+.BR getdents ();
+see NOTES.
.SH DESCRIPTION
-This is not the function you are interested in.
+These are not the interfaces you are interested in.
Look at
.BR readdir (3)
-for the POSIX conforming C library interface.
-This page documents the bare kernel system call interface.
-.PP
+for the POSIX-conforming C library interface.
+This page documents the bare kernel system call interfaces.
+.SS getdents()
The system call
.BR getdents ()
reads several
.IR dirp .
The argument
.I count
-is specifies the size of that buffer.
+specifies the size of that buffer.
.PP
The
.I linux_dirent
structure is declared as follows:
.PP
.in +4n
-.nf
+.EX
struct linux_dirent {
unsigned long d_ino; /* Inode number */
unsigned long d_off; /* Offset to next \fIlinux_dirent\fP */
unsigned short d_reclen; /* Length of this \fIlinux_dirent\fP */
char d_name[]; /* Filename (null-terminated) */
- /* length is actually (d_reclen \- 2 \-
- offsetof(struct linux_dirent, d_name) */
+ /* length is actually (d_reclen \- 2 \-
+ offsetof(struct linux_dirent, d_name)) */
/*
- char pad; // Zero padding byte */
- char d_type; // File type (only since Linux 2.6.4;
- // offset is (d_reclen \- 1))
+ char pad; // Zero padding byte
+ char d_type; // File type (only since Linux
+ // 2.6.4); offset is (d_reclen \- 1)
*/
-
}
-.fi
+.EE
.in
.PP
.I d_ino
.IR linux_dirent .
.I d_name
is a null-terminated filename.
-
+.PP
.I d_type
is a byte at the end of the structure that indicates the file type.
It contains one of the following values (defined in
This is a regular file.
.TP
.B DT_SOCK
-This is a Unix domain socket.
+This is a UNIX domain socket.
.TP
.B DT_UNKNOWN
The file type is unknown.
.PP
+The
+.I d_type
+field is implemented since Linux 2.6.4.
+It occupies a space that was previously a zero-filled padding byte in the
+.IR linux_dirent
+structure.
+Thus, on kernels up to and including 2.6.3,
+attempting to access this field always provides the value 0
+.RB ( DT_UNKNOWN ).
+.PP
Currently,
.\" kernel 2.6.27
.\" The same sentence is in readdir.2
-only some file systems (among them: ext2, etx3, and ext4)
-have full support returning the file type in
+only some filesystems (among them: Btrfs, ext2, ext3, and ext4)
+have full support for returning the file type in
.IR d_type .
All applications must properly handle a return of
.BR DT_UNKNOWN .
-.SH "RETURN VALUE"
+.SS getdents64()
+The original Linux
+.BR getdents ()
+system call did not handle large filesystems and large file offsets.
+Consequently, Linux 2.4 added
+.BR getdents64 (),
+with wider types for the
+.I d_ino
+and
+.I d_off
+fields.
+In addition,
+.BR getdents64 ()
+supports an explicit
+.I d_type
+field.
+.PP
+The
+.BR getdents64 ()
+system call is like
+.BR getdents (),
+except that its second argument is a pointer to a buffer containing
+structures of the following type:
+.PP
+.EX
+.in +4n
+struct linux_dirent64 {
+ ino64_t d_ino; /* 64-bit inode number */
+ off64_t d_off; /* 64-bit offset to next structure */
+ unsigned short d_reclen; /* Size of this dirent */
+ unsigned char d_type; /* File type */
+ char d_name[]; /* Filename (null-terminated) */
+};
+.EE
+.in
+.SH RETURN VALUE
On success, the number of bytes read is returned.
On end of directory, 0 is returned.
On error, \-1 is returned, and
.TP
.B ENOTDIR
File descriptor does not refer to a directory.
-.SH "CONFORMING TO"
+.SH CONFORMING TO
SVr4.
.\" SVr4 documents additional ENOLINK, EIO error conditions.
.SH NOTES
-Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using
+Library support for
+.BR getdents64 ()
+was added in glibc 2.30;
+there is no glibc wrapper for
+.BR getdents ().
+Calling
+.BR getdents ()
+(or
+.BR getdents64 ()
+on earlier glibc versions) requires the use of
.BR syscall (2).
-You will need to define the
+In that case you will need to define the
.I linux_dirent
+or
+.I linux_dirent64
structure yourself.
-
-This call supersedes
+.PP
+Probably, you probably want to use
+.BR readdir (3)
+instead of these system calls.
+.PP
+These calls supersede
.BR readdir (2).
.SH EXAMPLE
+.\" FIXME The example program needs to be revised, since it uses the older
+.\" getdents() system call and the structure with smaller field widths.
The program below demonstrates the use of
.BR getdents ().
The following output shows an example of what we see when running this
program on an ext2 directory:
-
+.PP
.in +4n
-.nf
+.EX
.RB "$" " ./a.out /testfs/"
--------------- nread=120 ---------------
-i-node# file type d_reclen d_off d_name
+inode# file type d_reclen d_off d_name
2 directory 16 12 .
2 directory 16 24 ..
11 directory 24 44 lost+found
228929 directory 16 68 sub
16353 directory 16 80 sub2
130817 directory 16 4096 sub3
-.fi
+.EE
.in
.SS Program source
-.R " "
-.nf
-#define HAVE_D_TYPE /* Remove for kernels < 2.6.4 */
+\&
+.EX
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <dirent.h> /* Defines DT_* constants */
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/syscall.h>
-#define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \\
- } while (0)
+#define handle_error(msg) \e
+ do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)
struct linux_dirent {
- long d_ino;
+ unsigned long d_ino;
off_t d_off;
unsigned short d_reclen;
char d_name[];
char buf[BUF_SIZE];
struct linux_dirent *d;
int bpos;
-#ifdef HAVE_D_TYPE
char d_type;
-#endif
fd = open(argc > 1 ? argv[1] : ".", O_RDONLY | O_DIRECTORY);
if (fd == \-1)
- errExit("open");
+ handle_error("open");
for ( ; ; ) {
nread = syscall(SYS_getdents, fd, buf, BUF_SIZE);
if (nread == \-1)
- errExit("getdents");
+ handle_error("getdents");
if (nread == 0)
break;
- printf("\--------------- nread=%d ---------------\\n", nread);
- printf("i\-node# file type d_reclen d_off d_name\\n");
+ printf("\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- nread=%d \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\en", nread);
+ printf("inode# file type d_reclen d_off d_name\en");
for (bpos = 0; bpos < nread;) {
d = (struct linux_dirent *) (buf + bpos);
printf("%8ld ", d\->d_ino);
-#ifdef HAVE_D_TYPE
- d_type = *(buf + bpos + d\->d_reclen - 1);
+ d_type = *(buf + bpos + d\->d_reclen \- 1);
printf("%\-10s ", (d_type == DT_REG) ? "regular" :
(d_type == DT_DIR) ? "directory" :
(d_type == DT_FIFO) ? "FIFO" :
(d_type == DT_LNK) ? "symlink" :
(d_type == DT_BLK) ? "block dev" :
(d_type == DT_CHR) ? "char dev" : "???");
-#endif
- printf("%4d %10lld %s\\n", d\->d_reclen,
- (long long) d\->d_off, (char *) d->d_name);
+ printf("%4d %10lld %s\en", d\->d_reclen,
+ (long long) d\->d_off, d\->d_name);
bpos += d\->d_reclen;
}
}
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
-.fi
-.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.EE
+.SH SEE ALSO
.BR readdir (2),
-.BR readdir (3)
+.BR readdir (3),
+.BR inode (7)