<dirent.h>(0P)                                      POSIX Programmer's Manual                                     <dirent.h>(0P)



NAME
       dirent.h - format of directory entries

SYNOPSIS
       #include <dirent.h>

DESCRIPTION
       The internal format of directories is unspecified.

       The <dirent.h> header shall define the following type:

       DIR    A type representing a directory stream.


       It shall also define the structure dirent which shall include the following members:


              ino_t  d_ino       File serial number.

              char   d_name[]    Name of entry.

       The type ino_t shall be defined as described in <sys/types.h> .

       The  character array d_name is of unspecified size, but the number of bytes preceding the terminating null byte shall not
       exceed {NAME_MAX}.

       The following shall be declared as functions and may also be defined as macros. Function prototypes shall be provided.


              int            closedir(DIR *);
              DIR           *opendir(const char *);
              struct dirent *readdir(DIR *);

              int            readdir_r(DIR *restrict, struct dirent *restrict,
                                 struct dirent **restrict);

              void           rewinddir(DIR *);

              void           seekdir(DIR *, long);
              long           telldir(DIR *);


       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       None.

RATIONALE
       Information similar to that in the <dirent.h> header is contained in a file <sys/dir.h> in  4.2  BSD  and  4.3  BSD.  The
       equivalent in these implementations of struct dirent from this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 is struct direct. The file-
       name was changed because the name <sys/dir.h> was also used in earlier implementations to refer to definitions related to
       the  older  access  method;  this  produced  name conflicts. The name of the structure was changed because this volume of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 does not completely define what is in the structure, so it could be different  on  some  implementa-
       tions from struct direct.

       The name of an array of char of an unspecified size should not be used as an lvalue. Use of:


              sizeof(d_name)

       is incorrect; use:


              strlen(d_name)

       instead.

       The  array  of  char d_name is not a fixed size. Implementations may need to declare struct dirent with an array size for
       d_name of 1, but the actual number of characters provided matches (or only slightly exceeds) the length of the filename.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       <sys/types.h>, the System Interfaces volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  closedir(),  opendir(),  readdir(),  readdir_r(),
       rewinddir(), seekdir(), telldir()

COPYRIGHT
       Portions  of  this  text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for
       Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6,  Copy-
       right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open  Group
       Standard   is   the   referee   document.   The   original   Standard   can   be   obtained  online  at  http://www.open-
       group.org/unix/online.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                                           2003                                                <dirent.h>(0P)