NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

       dir - Format of directories

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

       #include <sys/types.h>

       #include <dirent.h>

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

       A  directory  behaves like an ordinary file except that no
       user may write into a directory. The fact that a file is a
       directory  is  indicated  by a bit in the flag word of its
       inode entry. See the fs reference page.

       The POSIX standard way of returning directory  entries  is
       in  directory  entry  structures,  which  are  of variable
       length.  Each directory entry has a struct direct  at  the
       front  of  it,  containing its inode number, the length of
       the entry, and the length of the  name  contained  in  the
       entry.   These are followed by the name padded to a 4-byte
       boundary with null bytes.  All names are  guaranteed  null
       terminated. The maximum length of a name in a directory is
       _D_NAME_MAX.

       By convention, the first two entries in each directory are
       for  .  (dot) and .. (dot-dot).  The first is an entry for
       the directory itself.  The second is for the parent directory.
 The meaning of .. (dot-dot) is modified for the root
       directory (/) of the master file system,  where  ..  (dotdot)
 has the same meaning as . (dot).

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

       Functions: opendir(3)

       Files: fs(4)



                                                           dir(4)