getdents(2) [sunos man page]

getdents(2)							   System Calls 						       getdents(2)

NAME

       getdents - read directory entries and put in a file system independent format

SYNOPSIS

       #include <dirent.h>

       int getdents(int fildes, struct dirent *buf, size_t nbyte);

DESCRIPTION

       The  getdents()	function  attempts to read nbyte bytes from the directory associated with the file descriptor fildes and to format them as
       file system independent directory entries in the buffer pointed to by buf. Since the file system independent directory entries are of vari-
       able  lengths,  in  most  cases the actual number of bytes returned will be less than nbyte. The file system independent directory entry is
       specified by the dirent structure.  See dirent.h(3HEAD).

       On devices capable of seeking, getdents() starts at a position in the file given by the file pointer associated with  fildes.  Upon  return
       from getdents(), the file pointer is incremented to point to the next directory entry.

RETURN VALUES

       Upon  successful completion, a non-negative integer is returned indicating the number of bytes actually read. A return value of 0 indicates
       the end of the directory has been reached.  Otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       The getdents() function will fail if:

       EBADF	       The fildes argument is not a valid file descriptor open for reading.

       EFAULT	       The buf argument points to an illegal address.

       EINVAL	       The nbyte argument is not large enough for one directory entry.

       EIO	       An I/O error occurred while accessing the file system.

       ENOENT	       The current file pointer for the directory is not located at a valid entry.

       ENOLINK	       The fildes argument points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer active.

       ENOTDIR	       The fildes argument is not a directory.

       EOVERFLOW       The value of the dirent structure member d_ino or d_off cannot be represented in an ino_t or  off_t.

USAGE

       The getdents() function was developed to implement the readdir(3C) function and should not be used for other purposes.

       The getdents() function has a transitional interface for 64-bit file offsets.  See lf64(5).

SEE ALSO

       readdir(3C), dirent.h(3HEAD), lf64(5)

SunOS 5.10							    17 Jul 2001 						       getdents(2)

GETDENTS(2)						      BSD System Calls Manual						       GETDENTS(2)

NAME

     getdents -- get directory entries in a filesystem independent format

LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

     #include <dirent.h>

     int
     getdents(int fd, char *buf, size_t nbytes);

DESCRIPTION

     getdents() reads directory entries from the directory referenced by the file descriptor fd into the buffer pointed to by buf, in a filesystem
     independent format.  Up to nbytes of data will be transferred.  nbytes must be greater than or equal to the block size associated with the
     file, see stat(2).  Some filesystems may not support getdents() with buffers smaller than this size.

     The data in the buffer is a series of dirent structures:

	   struct dirent {
		   ino_t    d_fileno;		   /* file number of entry */
		   uint16_t d_reclen;		   /* length of this record */
		   uint16_t d_namlen;		   /* length of d_name */
		   uint8_t  d_type;		   /* file type, see below */
		   char     d_name[MAXNAMELEN + 1];
	   };

     The structure is described in dirent(3).

     Entries may be separated by extra space.  The d_reclen entry may be used as an offset from the start of a dirent structure to the next struc-
     ture, if any.

     The actual number of bytes transferred is returned.  The current position pointer associated with fd is set to point to the next block of
     entries.  The pointer may not advance by the number of bytes returned by getdents().  A value of zero is returned when the end of the direc-
     tory has been reached.

     The current position pointer may be set and retrieved by lseek(2).  The current position pointer should only be set to a value returned by
     lseek(2), or zero.

RETURN VALUES

     If successful, the number of bytes actually transferred is returned.  Otherwise, -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indi-
     cate the error.

ERRORS

     getdents() will fail if:

     [EBADF]   fd is not a valid file descriptor open for reading.

     [EFAULT]  buf points outside the allocated address space.

     [EINVAL]  A directory was being read on NFS, but it was modified on the server while it was being read.

     [EIO]     An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

SEE ALSO

     lseek(2), open(2), dirent(3)

HISTORY

     The getdents() function first appeared in NetBSD 1.3.

BSD
								   June 4, 2010 							       BSD