READDIR(3)



READDIR(3)                 Linux Programmer's Manual                READDIR(3)

NAME
       readdir - read a directory

SYNOPSIS
       #include <dirent.h>

       struct dirent *readdir(DIR *dirp);

DESCRIPTION
       The  readdir()  function returns a pointer to a dirent structure repre-
       senting the next directory entry in the directory stream pointed to  by
       dirp.   It  returns NULL on reaching the end of the directory stream or
       if an error occurred.

       In the glibc implementation, the dirent structure is  defined  as  fol-
       lows:

           struct dirent {
               ino_t          d_ino;       /* Inode number */
               off_t          d_off;       /* Not an offset; see below */
               unsigned short d_reclen;    /* Length of this record */
               unsigned char  d_type;      /* Type of file; not supported
                                              by all filesystem types */
               char           d_name[256]; /* Null-terminated filename */
           };

       The  only  fields  in the dirent structure that are mandated by POSIX.1
       are d_name and d_ino.  The other fields  are  unstandardized,  and  not
       present on all systems; see NOTES below for some further details.

       The fields of the dirent structure are as follows:

       d_ino  This is the inode number of the file.

       d_off  The  value returned in d_off is the same as would be returned by
              calling telldir(3) at the  current  position  in  the  directory
              stream.   Be  aware  that  despite  its type and name, the d_off
              field is seldom any kind of directory offset on modern  filesys-
              tems.   Applications should treat this field as an opaque value,
              making no assumptions about its contents; see also telldir(3).

       d_reclen
              This is the size (in bytes) of the returned  record.   This  may
              not  match the size of the structure definition shown above; see
              NOTES.

       d_type This field contains a value indicating the file type, making  it
              possible to avoid the expense of calling lstat(2) if further ac-
              tions depend on the type of the file.

              When a suitable feature test macro is  defined  (_DEFAULT_SOURCE
              on  glibc  versions since 2.19, or _BSD_SOURCE on glibc versions
              2.19 and earlier), glibc defines the following  macro  constants
              for the value returned in d_type:

              DT_BLK      This is a block device.

              DT_CHR      This is a character device.

              DT_DIR      This is a directory.

              DT_FIFO     This is a named pipe (FIFO).

              DT_LNK      This is a symbolic link.

              DT_REG      This is a regular file.

              DT_SOCK     This is a UNIX domain socket.

              DT_UNKNOWN  The file type could not be determined.

              Currently, only some filesystems (among them: Btrfs, ext2, ext3,
              and ext4) have full support  for  returning  the  file  type  in
              d_type.   All  applications  must  properly  handle  a return of
              DT_UNKNOWN.

       d_name This field contains the null terminated filename.  See NOTES.

       The data returned by readdir() may be overwritten by  subsequent  calls
       to readdir() for the same directory stream.

RETURN VALUE
       On  success,  readdir() returns a pointer to a dirent structure.  (This
       structure may be statically allocated; do not attempt to free(3) it.)

       If the end of the directory stream is reached, NULL is returned and er-
       rno  is not changed.  If an error occurs, NULL is returned and errno is
       set appropriately.  To distinguish end of stream from an error, set er-
       rno  to zero before calling readdir() and then check the value of errno
       if NULL is returned.

ERRORS
       EBADF  Invalid directory stream descriptor dirp.

ATTRIBUTES
       For an  explanation  of  the  terms  used  in  this  section,  see  at-
       tributes(7).

       +----------+---------------+--------------------------+
       |Interface | Attribute     | Value                    |
       +----------+---------------+--------------------------+
       |readdir() | Thread safety | MT-Unsafe race:dirstream |
       +----------+---------------+--------------------------+

       In  the  current POSIX.1 specification (POSIX.1-2008), readdir() is not
       required to be thread-safe.  However, in  modern  implementations  (in-
       cluding  the  glibc implementation), concurrent calls to readdir() that
       specify different directory streams are thread-safe.   In  cases  where
       multiple  threads must read from the same directory stream, using read-
       dir() with external synchronization is still preferable to the  use  of
       the  deprecated  readdir_r(3)  function.   It is expected that a future
       version of POSIX.1 will require that readdir() be thread-safe when con-
       currently employed on different directory streams.

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

NOTES
       A directory stream is opened using opendir(3).

       The  order in which filenames are read by successive calls to readdir()
       depends on the filesystem implementation; it is unlikely that the names
       will be sorted in any fashion.

       Only the fields d_name and (as an XSI extension) d_ino are specified in
       POSIX.1.  Other than Linux, the d_type field is available  mainly  only
       on  BSD  systems.   The remaining fields are available on many, but not
       all systems.  Under glibc, programs can check for the  availability  of
       the  fields  not  defined in POSIX.1 by testing whether the macros _DI-
       RENT_HAVE_D_NAMLEN, _DIRENT_HAVE_D_RECLEN, _DIRENT_HAVE_D_OFF, or  _DI-
       RENT_HAVE_D_TYPE are defined.

   The d_name field
       The  dirent  structure  definition  shown above is taken from the glibc
       headers, and shows the d_name field with a fixed size.

       Warning: applications should avoid any dependence on the  size  of  the
       d_name  field.  POSIX defines it as char d_name[], a character array of
       unspecified size, with at most NAME_MAX characters preceding the termi-
       nating null byte ('\0').

       POSIX.1  explicitly  notes  that  this  field  should not be used as an
       lvalue.  The standard also notes that the use of sizeof(d_name) is  in-
       correct;  use  strlen(d_name) instead.  (On some systems, this field is
       defined as char d_name[1]!)  By implication, the use sizeof(struct  di-
       rent) to capture the size of the record including the size of d_name is
       also incorrect.

       Note that while the call

           fpathconf(fd, _PC_NAME_MAX)

       returns the value 255 for most filesystems, on some filesystems  (e.g.,
       CIFS,  Windows SMB servers), the null-terminated filename that is (cor-
       rectly) returned in d_name can actually  exceed  this  size.   In  such
       cases, the d_reclen field will contain a value that exceeds the size of
       the glibc dirent structure shown above.

SEE ALSO
       getdents(2),  read(2),  closedir(3),  dirfd(3),  ftw(3),   offsetof(3),
       opendir(3),   readdir_r(3),   rewinddir(3),   scandir(3),   seekdir(3),
       telldir(3)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 5.07 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of  the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest    version    of    this    page,    can     be     found     at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

                                  2019-03-06                        READDIR(3)

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