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NAME

getdents, getdents64 - get directory entries

SYNOPSIS

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

#define _GNU_SOURCE /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <dirent.h>

ssize_t getdents64(int fd, void *dirp, size_t count);

Note: There is no glibc wrapper for getdents(); see NOTES.

DESCRIPTION

These are not the interfaces you are interested in. Look at readdir(3) for the POSIX-conforming C library interface. This page documents the bare kernel system call interfaces.

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

The linux_dirent structure is declared as follows:

struct linux_dirent {
    unsigned long  d_ino;     /* Inode number */
    unsigned long  d_off;     /* Offset to next linux_dirent */
    unsigned short d_reclen;  /* Length of this linux_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 linux_dirent. d_reclen is the size of this entire linux_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 (defined in <dirent.h>):

The d_type field is implemented since Linux 2.6.4. It occupies a space that was previously a zero-filled padding byte in the linux_dirent structure. Thus, on kernels up to and including 2.6.3, attempting to access this field always provides the value 0 (DT_UNKNOWN).

Currently, only some filesystems (among them: Btrfs, ext2, ext3, and ext4) have full support for returning the file type in d_type. All applications must properly handle a return of DT_UNKNOWN.

getdents64()
The original Linux getdents() system call did not handle large filesystems and large file offsets. Consequently, Linux 2.4 added getdents64(), with wider types for the d_ino and d_off fields. In addition, getdents64() supports an explicit d_type field.

The getdents64() system call is like getdents(), except that its second argument is a pointer to a buffer containing structures of the following type:

struct linux_dirent64 {
    ino64_t        d_ino;    /* 64-bit inode number */
    off64_t        d_off;    /* 64-bit offset to next structure */
    unsigned short d_reclen; /* Size of this dirent */
    unsigned char  d_type;   /* File type */
    char           d_name[]; /* Filename (null-terminated) */
};

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

ENOTDIR

File descriptor does not refer to a directory.

CONFORMING TO

SVr4.

NOTES

Library support for getdents64() was added in glibc 2.30; there is no glibc wrapper for getdents(). Calling getdents() (or getdents64() on earlier glibc versions) requires the use of syscall(2). In that case you will need to define the linux_dirent or linux_dirent64 structure yourself.

Probably, you want to use readdir(3) instead of these system calls.

These calls supersede readdir(2).

EXAMPLES

The program below demonstrates the use of getdents(). The following output shows an example of what we see when running this program on an ext2 directory:

$ ./a.out /testfs/
--------------- nread=120 ---------------
inode# file type d_reclen d_off d_name
2 directory 16 12 .
2 directory 16 24 ..
11 directory 24 44 lost+found
12 regular 16 56 a
228929 directory 16 68 sub
16353 directory 16 80 sub2
130817 directory 16 4096 sub3

Program source

#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <dirent.h>     /* Defines DT_* constants */
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/syscall.h>

#define handle_error(msg) \
        do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)

struct linux_dirent {
    unsigned long  d_ino;
    off_t          d_off;
    unsigned short d_reclen;
    char           d_name[];
};

#define BUF_SIZE 1024

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    int fd;
    long nread;
    char buf[BUF_SIZE];
    struct linux_dirent *d;
    char d_type;

    fd = open(argc > 1 ? argv[1] : ".", O_RDONLY | O_DIRECTORY);
    if (fd == -1)
        handle_error("open");

    for (;;) {
        nread = syscall(SYS_getdents, fd, buf, BUF_SIZE);
        if (nread == -1)
            handle_error("getdents");

        if (nread == 0)
            break;

        printf("--------------- nread=%d ---------------\n", nread);
        printf("inode#    file type  d_reclen  d_off   d_name\n");
        for (long bpos = 0; bpos < nread;) {
            d = (struct linux_dirent *) (buf + bpos);
            printf("%8ld  ", d->d_ino);
            d_type = *(buf + bpos + d->d_reclen - 1);
            printf("%-10s ", (d_type == DT_REG) ?  "regular" :
                             (d_type == DT_DIR) ?  "directory" :
                             (d_type == DT_FIFO) ? "FIFO" :
                             (d_type == DT_SOCK) ? "socket" :
                             (d_type == DT_LNK) ?  "symlink" :
                             (d_type == DT_BLK) ?  "block dev" :
                             (d_type == DT_CHR) ?  "char dev" : "???");
            printf("%4d %10jd  %s\n", d->d_reclen,
                    (intmax_t) d->d_off, d->d_name);
            bpos += d->d_reclen;
        }
    }

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

SEE ALSO

readdir(2), readdir(3), inode(7)

COLOPHON

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