NAME

       telldir - return current location in directory stream

SYNOPSIS

       #include <dirent.h>

       long telldir(DIR *dirp);

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

       telldir(): _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

       The  telldir()  function returns the current location associated with the directory stream
       dirp.

RETURN VALUE

       On success, the telldir() function returns the current location in the  directory  stream.
       On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

       EBADF  Invalid directory stream descriptor dirp.

ATTRIBUTES

   Multithreading (see pthreads(7))
       The telldir() function is thread-safe.

CONFORMING TO

       4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

NOTES

       In  glibc  up  to  version  2.1.1,  the  return type of telldir() was off_t.  POSIX.1-2001
       specifies long, and this is the type used since glibc 2.1.2.

       In early filesystems, the value returned by telldir() was a simple file  offset  within  a
       directory.   Modern  filesystems  use tree or hash structures, rather than flat tables, to
       represent directories.  On such filesystems, the value returned  by  telldir()  (and  used
       internally  by  readdir(3))  is  a "cookie" that is used by the implementation to derive a
       position within a directory.  Application programs should treat this strictly as an opaque
       value, making no assumptions about its contents.

SEE ALSO

       closedir(3), opendir(3), readdir(3), rewinddir(3), scandir(3), seekdir(3)

COLOPHON

       This  page  is  part of release 3.54 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/.

                                            2013-09-02                                 TELLDIR(3)