getdents(2) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | STANDARDS | HISTORY | NOTES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

getdents(2)                System Calls Manual               getdents(2)

NAME         top

       getdents, getdents64 - get directory entries

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <sys/syscall.h>      /* Definition of SYS_* constants */
       #include <unistd.h>

       long syscall(SYS_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[.count], size_t count);

       Note: glibc provides no wrapper for getdents(), necessitating the
       use of syscall(2).

       Note: There is no definition of struct linux_dirent in glibc; see
       NOTES.

DESCRIPTION         top

       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;     /* Not an offset; see below */
               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 a filesystem-specific value
       with no specific meaning to user space, though on older
       filesystems it used to be the distance from the start of the
       directory to the start of the next linux_dirent; see readdir(3).
       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>):

       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.

       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
       Linux 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;    /* Not an offset; see getdents() */
               unsigned short d_reclen; /* Size of this dirent */
               unsigned char  d_type;   /* File type */
               char           d_name[]; /* Filename (null-terminated) */
           };

RETURN VALUE         top

       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 to indicate the error.

ERRORS         top

       EBADF  Invalid file descriptor fd.

       EFAULT Argument points outside the calling process's address
              space.

       EINVAL Result buffer is too small.

       ENOENT No such directory.

       ENOTDIR
              File descriptor does not refer to a directory.

STANDARDS         top

       None.

HISTORY         top

       SVr4.

       getdents64()
              glibc 2.30.

NOTES         top

       glibc does not provide a wrapper for getdents(); call getdents()
       using 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         top

       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 <err.h>
       #include <fcntl.h>
       #include <stdint.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <sys/syscall.h>
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <unistd.h>

       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;
           char                 d_type;
           char                 buf[BUF_SIZE];
           long                 nread;
           struct linux_dirent  *d;

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

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

               if (nread == 0)
                   break;

               printf("--------------- nread=%ld ---------------\n", nread);
               printf("inode#    file type  d_reclen  d_off   d_name\n");
               for (size_t bpos = 0; bpos < nread;) {
                   d = (struct linux_dirent *) (buf + bpos);
                   printf("%8lu  ", 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         top

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

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-06-15                    getdents(2)

Pages that refer to this page: readdir(2)syscalls(2)readdir(3)proc(5)proc_pid_task(5)