xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man3c/opendir.3c (revision 66582b606a8194f7f3ba5b3a3a6dca5b0d346361)

Sun Microsystems, Inc. gratefully acknowledges The Open Group for
permission to reproduce portions of its copyrighted documentation.
Original documentation from The Open Group can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open
Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their
documentation.

In the following statement, the phrase ``this text'' refers to portions
of the system documentation.

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
in the SunOS Reference Manual, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6,
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy
between these versions and the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.

This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.

The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the
Common Development and Distribution License (the "License").
You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE
or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions
and limitations under the License.

When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each
file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE.
If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the
fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying
information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]


Portions Copyright (c) 1992, X/Open Company Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright (c) 2007, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

OPENDIR 3C "Jun 26, 2007"
NAME
opendir, fdopendir - open directory
SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>

DIR *opendir(const char *dirname);

DIR *fdopendir(int fildes);
DESCRIPTION

The opendir() function opens a directory stream corresponding to the directory named by the dirname argument.

The fdopendir() function opens a directory stream for the directory file descriptor fildes. The directory file descriptor should not be used or closed following a successful function call, as this might cause undefined results from future operations on the directory stream obtained from the call. Use closedir(3C) to close a directory stream.

The directory stream is positioned at the first entry. If the type DIR is implemented using a file descriptor, applications will only be able to open up to a total of {OPEN_MAX} files and directories. A successful call to any of the exec functions will close any directory streams that are open in the calling process. See exec(2).

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, opendir() and fdopendir() return a pointer to an object of type DIR. Otherwise, a null pointer is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The opendir() function will fail if: EACCES

Search permission is denied for the component of the path prefix of dirname or read permission is denied for dirname.

ELOOP

Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.

ENAMETOOLONG

The length of the dirname argument exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or a path name component is longer than {NAME_MAX} while {_POSIX_NO_TRUNC} is in effect.

ENOENT

A component of dirname does not name an existing directory or dirname is an empty string.

ENOTDIR

A component of dirname is not a directory.

The fdopendir() function will fail if: ENOTDIR

The file descriptor fildes does not reference a directory.

The opendir() function may fail if: EMFILE

There are {OPEN_MAX} file descriptors currently open in the calling process.

ENAMETOOLONG

Pathname resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate result whose length exceeds PATH_MAX.

ENFILE

Too many files are currently open on the system.

USAGE

The opendir() and fdopendir() functions should be used in conjunction with readdir(3C), closedir(3C) and rewinddir(3C) to examine the contents of the directory (see the EXAMPLES section in readdir(3C)). This method is recommended for portability.

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability
opendir() is Standard; fdopendir() is Evolving
MT-Level Safe
SEE ALSO

lstat(2), symlink(2), closedir(3C), readdir(3C), rewinddir(3C), scandir(3C), attributes(5)