GETDENTS

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (2)
Updated: 22 July 1995
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

getdents - get directory entries  

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>
#include <linux/dirent.h>
#include <linux/unistd.h>

_syscall3(int, getdents, uint, fd, struct dirent *, dirp, uint, count);

int getdents(unsigned int fd, struct dirent *dirp, unsigned int count);
 

DESCRIPTION

getdents reads several dirent structures from the directory pointed at by fd into the memory area pointed to by dirp. The parameter count is the size of the memory area.

The dirent structure is declared as follows:

struct dirent
{
    long d_ino;                 /* inode number */
    off_t d_off;                /* offset to next dirent */
    unsigned short d_reclen;    /* length of this dirent */
    char d_name [NAME_MAX+1];   /* file name (null-terminated) */
}

d_ino is an inode number. d_off is the distance from the start of the directory to the start of the next dirent. d_reclen is the size of this entire dirent. d_name is a null-terminated file name.

This call supersedes readdir(2).  

RETURN VALUE

On success, the number of bytes read is returned. On end of directory, 0 is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.  

ERRORS

EBADF
Invalid file descriptor fd.
ENOTDIR
File descriptor does not refer to a directory.
 

SEE ALSO

readdir(2), readdir(3)


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
ERRORS
SEE ALSO

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