SCANDIR(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual							SCANDIR(3)

NAME

       scandir, alphasort, versionsort - scan a directory for matching entries

SYNOPSIS

       #include <dirent.h>

       int scandir(const char *dirp, struct dirent ***namelist,
	      int (*filter)(const struct dirent *),
	      int (*compar)(const struct dirent **, const struct dirent **));

       int alphasort(const void *a, const void *b);

       int versionsort(const void *a, const void *b);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       scandir(), alphasort(): _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE
       versionsort(): _GNU_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

       The  scandir() function scans the directory dirp, calling filter() on each directory entry.  Entries for which filter() returns nonzero are
       stored in strings allocated via malloc(3), sorted using qsort(3) with the comparison function compar(), and  collected  in  array  namelist
       which is allocated via malloc(3).  If filter is NULL, all entries are selected.

       The alphasort() and versionsort() functions can be used as the comparison function compar().  The former sorts directory entries using str-
       coll(3), the latter using strverscmp(3) on the strings (*a)->d_name and (*b)->d_name.

RETURN VALUE

       The scandir() function returns the number of directory entries selected or -1 if an error occurs.

       The alphasort() and versionsort() functions return an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if the first argument is considered
       to be respectively less than, equal to, or greater than the second.

ERRORS

       ENOMEM Insufficient memory to complete the operation.

VERSIONS

       versionsort() was added to glibc in version 2.1.

CONFORMING TO

       alphasort() and scandir() are specified in POSIX.1-2008, and are widely available.  versionsort() is a GNU extension.

       The  functions  scandir()  and  alphasort() are from 4.3BSD, and have been available under Linux since libc4.  Libc4 and libc5 use the more
       precise prototype

	   int alphasort(const struct dirent ** a,
			 const struct dirent **b);

       but glibc 2.0 returns to the imprecise BSD prototype.

       The function versionsort() is a GNU extension, available since glibc 2.1.

       Since glibc 2.1, alphasort() calls strcoll(3); earlier it used strcmp(3).

EXAMPLE

       #define _SVID_SOURCE
       /* print files in current directory in reverse order */
       #include <dirent.h>

       int
       main(void)
       {
	   struct dirent **namelist;
	   int n;

	   n = scandir(".", &namelist, 0, alphasort);
	   if (n < 0)
	       perror("scandir");
	   else {
	       while (n--) {
		   printf("%s
", namelist[n]->d_name);
		   free(namelist[n]);
	       }
	       free(namelist);
	   }
       }

SEE ALSO

       closedir(3), fnmatch(3), opendir(3), readdir(3), rewinddir(3), seekdir(3), strcmp(3), strcoll(3), strverscmp(3), telldir(3)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 3.27 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/.

GNU
								    2009-02-10								SCANDIR(3)