readdir_r man page on Ubuntu

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

NAME
       readdir, readdir_r - read a directory

SYNOPSIS
       #include <dirent.h>

       struct dirent *readdir(DIR *dirp);

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

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       readdir_r(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 1 || _XOPEN_SOURCE || _BSD_SOURCE ||
       _SVID_SOURCE || _POSIX_SOURCE

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.

       On Linux, the dirent structure is defined as follows:

	   struct dirent {
	       ino_t	      d_ino;	   /* inode number */
	       off_t	      d_off;	   /* offset to the next dirent */
	       unsigned short d_reclen;	   /* length of this record */
	       unsigned char  d_type;	   /* type of file; not supported
					      by all file system types */
	       char	      d_name[256]; /* filename */
	   };

       The  only  fields  in the dirent structure that are mandated by POSIX.1
       are: d_name[], of unspecified size, with at  most  NAME_MAX  characters
       preceding  the  terminating null byte; and (as an XSI extension) d_ino.
       The other fields are unstandardized, and not present  on	 all  systems;
       see NOTES below for some further details.

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

       The readdir_r() function is a reentrant version of readdir().  It reads
       the next directory entry from the directory stream dirp, and returns it
       in the caller-allocated buffer pointed to by  entry.   (See  NOTES  for
       information on allocating this buffer.)	A pointer to the returned item
       is placed in *result; if the end of the directory  stream  was  encoun‐
       tered, then NULL is instead returned in *result.

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
       errno is not changed.  If an error occurs, NULL is returned  and	 errno
       is set appropriately.

       The  readdir_r() function returns 0 on success.	On error, it returns a
       positive error number.  If the end of the directory stream is  reached,
       readdir_r() returns 0, and returns NULL in *result.

ERRORS
       EBADF  Invalid directory stream descriptor dirp.

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

NOTES
       Only  the  fields  d_name and d_ino are specified in POSIX.1-2001.  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 _DIRENT_HAVE_D_NAMLEN,
       _DIRENT_HAVE_D_RECLEN,  _DIRENT_HAVE_D_OFF,  or _DIRENT_HAVE_D_TYPE are
       defined.

       Other than Linux, the d_type field is available mainly only on BSD sys‐
       tems.   This  field  makes  it possible to avoid the expense of calling
       lstat(2) if further actions depend on the type of  the  file.   If  the
       _BSD_SOURCE  feature test macro is defined, then glibc defines the fol‐
       lowing 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 is unknown.

       If the file type could not  be  determined,  the	 value	DT_UNKNOWN  is
       returned in d_type.

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

       Since  POSIX.1 does not specify the size of the d_name field, and other
       non-standard fields may precede that field within the dirent structure,
       portable	 applications  that use readdir_r() should allocate the buffer
       whose address is passed in entry as follows:

	   len = offsetof(struct dirent, d_name) +
		     pathconf(dirpath, _PC_NAME_MAX) + 1
	   entryp = malloc(len);

       (POSIX.1 requires that d_name is the last field in a struct dirent.)

SEE ALSO
       getdents(2),  read(2),  closedir(3),  dirfd(3),	ftw(3),	  offsetof(3),
       opendir(3),  rewinddir(3),  scandir(3),	seekdir(3),  telldir(3),  fea‐
       ture_test_macros(7)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of	the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

				  2009-07-04			    READDIR(3)
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