OPENDIR(3)                          Linux Programmer's Manual                          OPENDIR(3)



NAME
       opendir, fdopendir - open a directory

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

       DIR *opendir(const char *name);
       DIR *fdopendir(int fd);

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

       fdopendir():
           Since glibc 2.10:
               _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 700 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
           Before glibc 2.10:
               _GNU_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION
       The  opendir()  function opens a directory stream corresponding to the directory name, and
       returns a pointer to the directory stream.  The stream is positioned at the first entry in
       the directory.

       The  fdopendir() function is like opendir(), but returns a directory stream for the direc‐
       tory referred to by the open file descriptor fd.  After a successful call to  fdopendir(),
       fd  is  used  internally  by  the  implementation, and should not otherwise be used by the
       application.

RETURN VALUE
       The opendir() and fdopendir() functions return a pointer  to  the  directory  stream.   On
       error, NULL is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS
       EACCES Permission denied.

       EBADF  fd is not a valid file descriptor opened for reading.

       EMFILE Too many file descriptors in use by process.

       ENFILE Too many files are currently open in the system.

       ENOENT Directory does not exist, or name is an empty string.

       ENOMEM Insufficient memory to complete the operation.

       ENOTDIR
              name is not a directory.

VERSIONS
       fdopendir() is available in glibc since version 2.4.

CONFORMING TO
       opendir() is present on SVr4, 4.3BSD, and specified in POSIX.1-2001.  fdopendir() is spec‐
       ified in POSIX.1-2008.

NOTES
       The underlying file descriptor of the directory stream can be obtained using dirfd(3).

       The opendir() function sets the close-on-exec flag for the file descriptor underlying  the
       DIR  *.   The  fdopendir() function leaves the setting of the close-on-exec flag unchanged
       for the file descriptor, fd.  POSIX.1-200x leaves it unspecified whether a successful call
       to fdopendir() will set the close-on-exec flag for the file descriptor, fd.

SEE ALSO
       open(2),   closedir(3),   dirfd(3),   readdir(3),  rewinddir(3),  scandir(3),  seekdir(3),
       telldir(3)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.74 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 http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU                                         2010-06-20                                 OPENDIR(3)