DIRENT(4)                  FILE FORMATS                 DIRENT(4)


NAME
     dirent -- file system independent directory entry


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


DESCRIPTION
     Different  file  system  types  can have different directory
     entries.  The dirent structure defines a file  system  inde-
     pendent  directory entry that contains information common to
     directory entries in different file system types. A  set  of
     these structures is returned by the getdents(2) system call.

     The dirent structure is as follows.
          struct dirent {
                  long           d_ino;
                  o_off_t        d_off;
                  unsigned short d_reclen;
                  char           d_name[1];
          };

     The d_ino is a number that is unique for each  file  in  the
     file system. The field d_off is the offset of that directory
     entry in the actual file system directory. The field  d_name
     is  the  beginning of the character array giving the name of
     the directory entry. This name is  null-terminated  and  can
     have up to MAXNAMLEN characters. This results in file system
     independent directory entries  being  variable-length  enti-
     ties.  The  value  of  d_reclen is the record length of this
     entry. This length is defined as the number of bytes between
     the  current  entry  and  the  next  one,  so that it always
     results in the next entry being on a long boundary.


FILES
     /usr/include/sys/dirent.h


SEE ALSO
     getdents(2)














SUPER-UX            Last change: Nov 12, 1996                   1