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

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

       ┌──────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │Interface │ Attribute     │ Value   │
       ├──────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │telldir() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └──────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, 4.3BSD.

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  4.04  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
       http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

                                                   2015-08-08                                         TELLDIR(3)