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
	      actions 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
       errno  is  not changed.	If an error occurs, NULL is returned and errno
       is set appropriately.  To distinguish end of stream and from an	error,
       set  errno 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
       attributes(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
       (including  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
       readdir() 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
       _DIRENT_HAVE_D_NAMLEN,  _DIRENT_HAVE_D_RECLEN,  _DIRENT_HAVE_D_OFF,  or
       _DIRENT_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
       incorrect; use strlen(d_name) instead.  (On some systems, this field is
       defined as char d_name[1]!)   By	 implication,  the  use	 sizeof(struct
       dirent)	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 4.10 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/.



				  2016-03-15			    READDIR(3)