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GETDIRENTRIES(2) FreeBSD System Calls Manual GETDIRENTRIES(2)
NAME
getdirentries, getdents - get directory entries in a file system
independent format
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>
ssize_t
getdirentries(int fd, char *buf, size_t nbytes, off_t *basep);
ssize_t
getdents(int fd, char *buf, size_t nbytes);
DESCRIPTION
The getdirentries() and getdents() system calls read directory entries
from the directory referenced by the file descriptor fd into the buffer
pointed to by buf, in a file system independent format. Up to nbytes of
data will be transferred. The nbytes argument must be greater than or
equal to the block size associated with the file, see stat(2). Some file
systems may not support these system calls with buffers smaller than this
size.
The data in the buffer is a series of dirent structures each containing
the following entries:
ino_t d_fileno;
off_t d_off;
uint16_t d_reclen;
uint8_t d_type;
uint16_t d_namlen;
char d_name[MAXNAMLEN + 1]; /* see below */
The d_fileno entry is a number which is unique for each distinct file in
the file system. Files that are linked by hard links (see link(2)) have
the same d_fileno. The d_off field returns a cookie which, if non-zero,
can be used with lseek(2) to position the directory descriptor to the
next entry. The d_reclen entry is the length, in bytes, of the directory
record. The d_type entry is the type of the file pointed to by the
directory record. The file type values are defined in <sys/dirent.h>.
The d_name entry contains a null terminated file name. The d_namlen
entry specifies the length of the file name excluding the null byte.
Thus the actual size of d_name may vary from 1 to MAXNAMLEN + 1.
Entries may be separated by extra space. The d_reclen entry may be used
as an offset from the start of a dirent structure to the next structure,
if any.
The actual number of bytes transferred is returned. The current position
pointer associated with fd is set to point to the next block of entries.
The pointer may not advance by the number of bytes returned by
getdirentries() or getdents(). A value of zero is returned when the end
of the directory has been reached.
IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
The d_off field is currently set to 0 by the NFS client, since the
directory offset cookies returned by an NFS server cannot be used by
lseek(2) at this time.
RETURN VALUES
If successful, the number of bytes actually transferred is returned.
Otherwise, -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to
indicate the error.
ERRORS
The getdirentries() system call will fail if:
[EBADF] The fd argument is not a valid file descriptor open
for reading.
[EFAULT] Either buf or non-NULL basep point outside the
allocated address space.
[EINVAL] The file referenced by fd is not a directory, or
nbytes is too small for returning a directory entry or
block of entries, or the current position pointer is
invalid.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
the file system.
[EINTEGRITY] Corrupted data was detected while reading from the
file system.
[ENOENT] Directory unlinked but still open.
SEE ALSO
lseek(2), open(2)
HISTORY
The getdirentries() system call first appeared in 4.4BSD. The getdents()
system call first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 April 11, 2022 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11