This interface is provided for compatibility only and has been obsoleted by
getdents(2).
getdirentries() reads directory entries from the directory referenced by the file descriptor
fd into the buffer pointed to by
buf, in a filesystem independent format. Up to
nbytes of data will be transferred.
nbytes must be greater than or equal to the block size associated with the file, see
stat(2). Some filesystems may not support
getdirentries() with buffers smaller than this size.
The data in the buffer is a series of
dirent structures each containing the following entries:
unsigned long d_fileno;
unsigned short d_reclen;
unsigned short d_namlen;
char d_name[MAXNAMELEN + 1]; /* see below */
The
d_fileno entry is a number which is unique for each distinct file in the filesystem. Files that are linked by hard links (see
link(2)) have the same
d_fileno. If
d_fileno is zero, the entry refers to a deleted file.
The
d_reclen entry is the length, in bytes, of the directory record.
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
MAXNAMELEN + 1.
The
d_name entry contains a null terminated file name.
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(). A value of zero is returned when the end of the directory has been reached.
getdirentries() writes the position of the block read into the location pointed to by
basep. Alternatively, the current position pointer may be set and retrieved by
lseek(2). The current position pointer should only be set to a value returned by
lseek(2), a value returned in the location pointed to by
basep, or zero.