GETDENTS(2)		   Linux Programmers Manual		  GETDENTS(2)



NAME
       getdents - get directory entries

SYNOPSIS
       #include 
       #include 
       #include 
       #include 
       #include 

       int getdents(unsigned int fd, struct dirent *dirp,
		    unsigned int count);

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.

       The  system  call  getdents()  reads several dirent structures from the
       directory referred to by the open file descriptor fd  into  the	buffer
       pointed to by dirp.  The argument count is the size of the memory area.

       The dirent structure is declared as follows:

	   struct linux_dirent {
	       unsigned long  d_ino;	 /* Inode number */
	       unsigned long  d_off;	 /* Offset to next dirent */
	       unsigned short d_reclen;  /* Length of this dirent */
	       char	      d_name []; /* Filename (null-terminated) */
				   /* length is actually (d_reclen - 2 -
				      offsetof(struct linux_dirent, d_name) */
	       char	      pad;	 /* Zero padding byte */
	       char	      d_type;	 /* File type (only since Linux 2.6.4;
					    offset is (d_reclen - 1)) */

	   }

       d_ino is an inode number.  d_off is the distance from the start of  the
       directory  to  the  start  of the next dirent.  d_reclen is the size of
       this entire dirent.  d_name is a null-terminated filename.

       d_type is a byte at the end of the structure that  indicates  the  file
       type.  It contains one of the following values:

       DT_BLK	   This is a block device.

       DT_CHR	   This is a character device.

       DT_DIR	   This is a directory.

       DT_FIFO	   This is a named pipe (FIFO).

       DT_LNK	   This is a symbolic link.

       DT_REG	   This is a regular file.

       DT_SOCK	   This is a Unix domain socket.

       DT_UNKNOWN  The file type is unknown.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, the number of bytes read is returned.  On end of directory,
       0  is  returned.   On  error,  -1  is  returned,  and  errno   is   set
       appropriately.

ERRORS
       EBADF  Invalid file descriptor fd.

       EFAULT Argument points outside the calling processs address space.

       EINVAL Result buffer is too small.

       ENOENT No such directory.

       ENOTDIR
	      File descriptor does not refer to a directory.

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4.

NOTES
       Glibc  does  not  provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using
       syscall(2).

       This call supersedes readdir(2).

SEE ALSO
       readdir(2), readdir(3)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.05 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/.



Linux				  2008-06-22			   GETDENTS(2)