Name

getdents — get directory entries

Synopsis

#include <unistd.h>
#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/dirent.h>
#include <linux/unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
int getdents( unsigned int   fd,
  struct dirent *  dirp,
  unsigned int   count);

DESCRIPTION

This is not the function you are interested in. Look at readdir(3) for the POSIX conforming C library interface. This page documents the bare kernel system call interface.

The system call 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];
/* filename (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 filename.

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.

EFAULT

Argument points outside the calling process's address space.

EINVAL

Result buffer is too small.

ENOENT

No such directory.

ENOTDIR

File descriptor does not refer to a directory.

CONFORMING TO

SVr4.

NOTES

Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using syscall(2).

SEE ALSO

readdir(2), readdir(3)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 2.79 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/.


  Copyright (C) 1995 Andries Brouwer (aebcwi.nl)

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.

Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.

Written 11 June 1995 by Andries Brouwer <aebcwi.nl>
Modified 22 July 1995 by Michael Chastain <mecduracef.shout.net>:
  Derived from 'readdir.2'.
Modified Tue Oct 22 08:11:14 EDT 1996 by Eric S. Raymond <esrthyrsus.com>