Name

readdir — read directory entry

Synopsis

#include <sys/syscall.h>       /* Definition of  SYS_*  constants */
#include <unistd.h>
int syscall( SYS_readdir,
  unsigned int fd,
  struct old_linux_dirent *dirp,
  unsigned int count);
 
[Note] Note
There is no definition of
.BR "struct old_linux_dirent" ;
see NOTES.
  

DESCRIPTION

This is not the function you are interested in. Look at readdir(3) for the POSIX conforming C library interface. This page documents the bare kernel system call interface, which is superseded by getdents(2).

readdir() reads one old_linux_dirent structure from the directory referred to by the file descriptor fd into the buffer pointed to by dirp. The argument count is ignored; at most one old_linux_dirent structure is read.

The old_linux_dirent structure is declared (privately in Linux kernel file fs/readdir.c) as follows:

struct old_linux_dirent {
  unsigned long   d_ino;
/* inode number */
  unsigned long   d_offset;
/* offset to this old_linux_dirent */
  unsigned short   d_namlen;
/* length of this d_name */
  char   d_name[1];
/* filename (null\-terminated) */
};

d_ino is an inode number. d_offset is the distance from the start of the directory to this old_linux_dirent. d_reclen is the size of d_name, not counting the terminating null byte ('\0'). d_name is a null-terminated filename.

RETURN VALUE

On success, 1 is returned. On end of directory, 0 is returned. On error, −1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

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

This system call is Linux-specific.

NOTES

You will need to define the old_linux_dirent structure yourself. However, probably you should use readdir(3) instead.

This system call does not exist on x86-64.

SEE ALSO

getdents(2), readdir(3)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 5.13 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.


  Copyright (C) 1995 Andries Brouwer (aebcwi.nl)

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Written 11 June 1995 by Andries Brouwer <aebcwi.nl>
Modified 22 July 1995 by Michael Chastain <mecduracef.shout.net>:
  In 1.3.X, returns only one entry each time; return value is different.
Modified 2004-12-01, mtk, fixed headers listed in SYNOPSIS