redhat man page for getdents

GETDENTS(2)						     Linux Programmer's Manual						       GETDENTS(2)

NAME
       getdents - get directory entries

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <linux/types.h>
       #include <linux/dirent.h>
       #include <linux/unistd.h>

       _syscall3(int, getdents, uint, fd, struct dirent *, dirp, uint, count);

       int getdents(unsigned int fd, struct dirent *dirp, unsigned int count);

DESCRIPTION
       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];   /* file name (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 file name.

       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 appro-
       priately.

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, SVID.  SVr4 documents additional ENOLINK, EIO error conditions.

SEE ALSO
       readdir(2), readdir(3)

Linux 1.3.6							    1995-07-22							       GETDENTS(2)