SYS-DIRREAD(2)SYS-DIRREAD(2)NAME
dirread - read directory
SYNOPSIS
include "sys.m";
sys := load Sys Sys->PATH;
dirread: fn(fd: ref FD): (int, array of Dir);
DESCRIPTION
Dirread reads the contents of the directory pointed to by the open file
descriptor fd, returning a tuple containing an array with one Dir
structure for each directory entry read. These Dir structures are
equivalent to the result of a stat call on each file in the directory.
See sys-stat(2) for a description of stat and Dir.
A successful dirread returns a tuple giving the number of entries read
and the resulting array. A return of (0,nil) indicates the end of the
directory. Directory entries are variable length in general; the file
offset is advanced by the number of bytes actually read.
Seeks (see sys-seek(2)) are allowed on directories only to seek to the
start.
In general, several calls to dirread will be needed to read the whole
directory. Readdir (2) provides functions that return all the direc‐
tory entries at once, optionally sorted.
SEE ALSOreaddir(2), sys-intro(2), sys-open(2), sys-read(2), sys-seek(2), sys-
stat(2)DIAGNOSTICS
The integer in dirread's return tuple has a value of -1 on error, and 0
on end of file. The array element of the tuple is nil in both cases.
SYS-DIRREAD(2)
