TELLDIR

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2021-03-22
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

telldir - return current location in directory stream  

SYNOPSIS

#include <dirent.h>

long telldir(DIR *dirp);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

telldir(): 

    _XOPEN_SOURCE
       || /* Glibc since 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
       || /* Glibc <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE
 

DESCRIPTION

The telldir() function returns the current location associated with the directory stream dirp.  

RETURN VALUE

On success, the telldir() function returns the current location in the directory stream. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.  

ERRORS

EBADF
Invalid directory stream descriptor dirp.
 

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
InterfaceAttributeValue
telldir() Thread safetyMT-Safe

 

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, 4.3BSD.  

NOTES

In glibc up to version 2.1.1, the return type of telldir() was off_t. POSIX.1-2001 specifies long, and this is the type used since glibc 2.1.2.

In early filesystems, the value returned by telldir() was a simple file offset within a directory. Modern filesystems use tree or hash structures, rather than flat tables, to represent directories. On such filesystems, the value returned by telldir() (and used internally by readdir(3)) is a "cookie" that is used by the implementation to derive a position within a directory. Application programs should treat this strictly as an opaque value, making no assumptions about its contents.  

SEE ALSO

closedir(3), opendir(3), readdir(3), rewinddir(3), scandir(3), seekdir(3)  

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 5.11 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
ERRORS
ATTRIBUTES
CONFORMING TO
NOTES
SEE ALSO
COLOPHON
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Time: 06:22:45 GMT, May 09, 2021