NAME

       dirent.h - format of directory entries

SYNOPSIS

       #include <dirent.h>

DESCRIPTION

       The internal format of directories is unspecified.

       The <dirent.h> header shall define the following type:

       DIR    A type representing a directory stream.

       It shall also define the structure dirent which shall include the following members:

              ino_t  d_ino       File serial number.

              char   d_name[]    Name of entry.

       The type ino_t shall be defined as described in <sys/types.h> .

       The character array d_name is of unspecified size, but the number of bytes preceding the terminating null
       byte shall not exceed {NAME_MAX}.

       The following shall be declared as functions and may also be defined as macros. Function prototypes shall
       be provided.

              int            closedir(DIR *);
              DIR           *opendir(const char *);
              struct dirent *readdir(DIR *);

              int            readdir_r(DIR *restrict, struct dirent *restrict,
                                 struct dirent **restrict);

              void           rewinddir(DIR *);

              void           seekdir(DIR *, long);
              long           telldir(DIR *);

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       None.

RATIONALE

       Information  similar  to  that in the <dirent.h> header is contained in a file <sys/dir.h> in 4.2 BSD and
       4.3  BSD.  The  equivalent  in  these  implementations   of   struct   dirent   from   this   volume   of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001  is  struct  direct.  The filename was changed because the name <sys/dir.h> was also
       used in earlier implementations to refer to definitions related to the older access method; this produced
       name conflicts. The name of the structure was changed because this volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001  does
       not  completely  define  what  is in the structure, so it could be different on some implementations from
       struct direct.

       The name of an array of char of an unspecified size should not be used as an lvalue. Use of:

              sizeof(d_name)

       is incorrect; use:

              strlen(d_name)

       instead.

       The array of char d_name is not a fixed size. Implementations may need to declare struct dirent  with  an
       array  size  for  d_name  of  1,  but  the actual number of characters provided matches (or only slightly
       exceeds) the length of the filename.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       <sys/types.h> , the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, closedir(),  opendir(),  readdir(),
       readdir_r(), rewinddir(), seekdir(), telldir()

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition,
       Standard  for  Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
       Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
       Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the  original  IEEE  and
       The  Open  Group  Standard,  the  original  IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
       original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE/The Open Group                                   2003                                         <dirent.h>(P)