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DIRECTORY(3)		 BSD Library Functions Manual		  DIRECTORY(3)

NAME
     fdopendir, opendir, readdir, readdir_r, telldir, seekdir, rewinddir,
     closedir, dirfd — directory operations

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <dirent.h>

     DIR *
     opendir(const char *filename);

     DIR *
     fdopendir(int fd);

     struct dirent *
     readdir(DIR *dirp);

     int
     readdir_r(DIR * restrict dirp, struct dirent * restrict entry,
	 struct dirent ** restrict result);

     long
     telldir(DIR *dirp);

     void
     seekdir(DIR *dirp, long loc);

     void
     rewinddir(DIR *dirp);

     int
     closedir(DIR *dirp);

     int
     dirfd(DIR *dirp);

DESCRIPTION
     The type DIR represents a directory stream; an ordered sequence of all
     directory entries in a particular directory.  The purpose of the DIR
     structure is similar to that of the FILE structure maintained by the
     stdio(3) library functions.

FUNCTIONS
     The following standard directory operations are defined.

     opendir(filename)
	  The opendir() function opens the directory named by filename and as‐
	  sociates a directory stream with it.	The directory stream is posi‐
	  tioned at the first entry.  Upon successful completion, a pointer to
	  DIR type is returned.	 Otherwise, opendir() returns NULL.

     fdopendir(fd)
	  The fdopendir() function associates a directory stream with the
	  directory file descriptor fd.	 The file offset associated with fd at
	  the time of the call determines which entries are returned.

	  Upon failure, fdopendir() returns NULL.  Otherwise the file descrip‐
	  tor is under the control of the system, and if any attempt is made
	  to close the file descriptor, or to modify the state of the associ‐
	  ated description, other than by means of closedir(), readdir(),
	  readdir_r(), rewinddir(), the behavior is undefined.	The file
	  descriptor can be closed by calling closedir().

     readdir(dirp)
	  The readdir() function returns a pointer to the directory entry at
	  the current position in the directory stream specified by dirp, and
	  positions the directory stream at the next entry.  It returns NULL
	  upon reaching the end of the directory or detecting an invalid
	  seekdir() operation.	The returned structure is described in
	  dirent(3).

	  The returned pointer to the dirent structure points to data which
	  may be overwritten by another call to readdir() on the same direc‐
	  tory stream.	This data is not however overwritten by another call
	  to readdir() on a different directory stream.

     readdir_r(dirp, entry, result)
	  The readdir_r() function provides the same functionality as
	  readdir(), but the caller must provide a directory entry buffer to
	  store the results in.	 If the read succeeds, result is pointed at
	  the entry; upon reaching the end of the directory result is set to
	  NULL.	 The readdir_r() function returns 0 on success or an error
	  number to indicate failure.

	  Like readdir(), the readdir_r() function may buffer several direc‐
	  tory entries per actual read operation.  Both functions mark for
	  update the st_atime field (see stat(2)) of the directory each time
	  the directory is actually read.

     telldir(dirp)
	  The telldir() function returns the current location associated with
	  the directory stream specified by dirp.

	  If the most recent operation on the particular directory stream was
	  a seekdir(), the directory position returned from telldir() is the
	  same as loc supplied as an argument to the seekdir() call.

     seekdir(dirp, loc)
	  The seekdir() function sets the position of the next readdir() oper‐
	  ation on the directory stream specified by dirp.  The value of loc
	  should come from a previous call to telldir() using the same direc‐
	  tory stream.

	  The new position reverts to the one associated with the directory
	  stream when the telldir() operation was performed.  Values returned
	  by telldir() are good only for the lifetime of the DIR pointer,
	  dirp, from which they are derived.  If the directory is closed and
	  then reopened, the telldir() value cannot be re-used.

     rewinddir(dirp)
	  The rewinddir() function resets the position of the named directory
	  stream to the beginning of the directory.  It also causes the direc‐
	  tory stream to refer to the current state of the corresponding
	  directory, as if a call to opendir() would have been made.

	  If dirp does not refer to a valid directory stream, the behavior is
	  undefined.

     closedir(dirp)
	  The closedir() function closes the directory stream and frees the
	  structure associated with the dirp pointer, returning 0 on success
	  and -1 on failure.

     dirfd(dirp)
	  The dirfd() function returns the integer file descriptor associated
	  with the directory stream specified by dirp.	Upon failure, dirfd()
	  returns -1.  The returned file descriptor should be closed by
	  closedir() instead of close(2).

	  The rationale of dirfd() is to provide a mechanism by which a file
	  descriptor can be obtained for the use of the fchdir(2) function.

EXAMPLES
     Sample code which searches a directory for entry “name” is:

	   len = strlen(name);
	   dirp = opendir(".");
	   if (dirp != NULL) {
		   while ((dp = readdir(dirp)) != NULL)
			   if (dp->d_namlen == len &&
			       !strcmp(dp->d_name, name)) {
				   (void)closedir(dirp);
				   return (FOUND);
			   }
		   (void)closedir(dirp);
	   }
	   return (NOT_FOUND);

COMPATIBILITY
     The described directory operations have traditionally been problematic in
     terms of portability.  A good example is the semantics around ‘.’ (dot)
     and ‘..’ (dot-dot).  Based on historical implementations, the rules about
     file descriptors apply to directory streams as well.  The IEEE Std
     1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) standard does not however any more mandate that
     directory streams are necessarily implemented by using file descriptors.

     The following additional remarks can be noted from the IEEE Std
     1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) standard.

       ·   If the type DIR is implemented using a file descriptor, like in
	   NetBSD, applications should be able to open only OPEN_MAX files and
	   directories.	 Otherwise the limit is left as unspecified.

       ·   When a file descriptor is used to implement the directory stream,
	   the closedir() function behaves as if the FD_CLOEXEC had been set
	   for the file descriptor.  In another words, it is mandatory that
	   closedir() deallocates the file descriptor.

       ·   If directory streams are not implemented by using file descriptors,
	   functions such as dirfd() may fail with ENOTSUP.

       ·   If a file is removed from or added to the directory after the most
	   recent call to opendir() or rewinddir(), it is unspecified whether
	   a subsequent call to readdir() returns an entry for that file.

       ·   When using the function seekdir(), note that if the value of loc
	   was not obtained from an earlier call to telldir(), or if a call to
	   rewinddir() occurred between the calls to telldir() and seekdir(),
	   any subsequent call to readdir() is unspecified, possibly resulting
	   undefined behavior.

       ·   After a call to fork(2), either the parent or child (but not both)
	   can continue processing the directory stream using readdir(),
	   rewinddir(), or seekdir().  However, if both the parent and child
	   processes use these functions, the result is undefined.

ERRORS
     All described functions may set errno to indicate the error.

SEE ALSO
     close(2), lseek(2), open(2), read(2), dirent(3)

STANDARDS
     The opendir(), readdir(), rewinddir() and closedir() functions conform to
     ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”).  The other functions conform to IEEE Std
     1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).

HISTORY
     The opendir(), readdir(), telldir(), seekdir(), rewinddir(), closedir(),
     and dirfd() functions appeared in 4.2BSD.	The fdopendir() function
     appeared in NetBSD 6.0.

BSD			       October 15, 2011				   BSD
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