osx man page for directory

DIRECTORY(3)						   BSD Library Functions Manual 					      DIRECTORY(3)

NAME
     closedir, dirfd, opendir, readdir, readdir_r, rewinddir, seekdir, telldir -- directory operations

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <dirent.h>

     int
     closedir(DIR *dirp);

     int
     dirfd(DIR *dirp);

     DIR *
     opendir(const char *dirname);

     struct dirent *
     readdir(DIR *dirp);

     int
     readdir_r(DIR *restrict dirp, struct dirent *restrict entry, struct dirent **restrict result);

     void
     rewinddir(DIR *dirp);

     void
     seekdir(DIR *dirp, long loc);

     long
     telldir(DIR *dirp);

DESCRIPTION
     The opendir() function opens the directory named by dirname, associates a directory stream with it, and returns a pointer to be used to iden-
     tify the directory stream in subsequent operations.  In the event of an error, NULL is returned and errno will be set to reflect if dirname
     cannot be accessed or if it cannot malloc(3) enough memory to hold the whole thing.

     The readdir() function returns a pointer to the next directory entry.  It returns NULL upon reaching the end of the directory or on error.
     In the event of an error, errno will be set to any of the values documented for the getdirentries(2) system call.

     The readdir_r() function provides the same functionality as readdir(), but the caller must provide a directory entry buffer to store the
     results in.  If the read succeeds, result is pointed at the entry; upon reaching the end of the directory, result is set to NULL.	The
     readdir_r() function returns 0 on success or an error number to indicate failure.

     The telldir() function returns the current location associated with the named directory stream.  Values returned by telldir() are good only
     for the lifetime of the DIR pointer (e.g., dirp) from which they are derived.  If the directory is closed and then reopened, prior values
     returned by telldir() will no longer be valid.

     The seekdir() function sets the position of the next readdir() operation on the directory stream.	The new position reverts to the one asso-
     ciated with the directory stream when the telldir() operation was performed.

     The rewinddir() function resets the position of the named directory stream to the beginning of the directory.

     The closedir() function closes the named directory stream and frees the structure associated with the dirp pointer, returning 0 on success.
     On failure, -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

     The dirfd() function returns the integer file descriptor associated with the named directory stream on success, see open(2).  On failure, -1
     is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

     Sample code which searches a directory for entry ``name'' is:

	   dirp = opendir(".");
	   if (dirp == NULL)
		   return (ERROR);
	   len = strlen(name);
	   while ((dp = readdir(dirp)) != NULL) {
		   if (dp->d_namlen == len && strcmp(dp->d_name, name) == 0) {
			   (void)closedir(dirp);
			   return (FOUND);
		   }
	   }
	   (void)closedir(dirp);
	   return (NOT_FOUND);

LEGACY SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <dirent.h>

     <sys/types.h> is necessary for these functions.

SEE ALSO
     close(2), lseek(2), open(2), read(2), compat(5), dir(5)

HISTORY
     The closedir(), dirfd(), opendir(), readdir(), rewinddir(), seekdir(), and telldir() functions appeared in 4.2BSD.

BSD
								   June 4, 1993 							       BSD