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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON


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

NAME         top

       dirfd - get directory stream file descriptor

SYNOPSIS         top

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

       int dirfd(DIR *dirp);

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

       dirfd(): _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION         top

       The function dirfd() returns the file descriptor associated with the directory
       stream dirp.

       This descriptor is the one used internally by the directory stream.  As a
       result, it is only useful for functions which do not depend on or alter the
       file position, such as fstat(2) and fchdir(2).  It will be automatically
       closed when closedir(3) is called.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, a non-negative file descriptor is returned.  On error, -1 is
       returned.

ERRORS         top

       POSIX.1-2008 specifies two errors, neither of which is returned by the current
       implementation.

       EINVAL dirp does not refer to a valid directory stream.

       ENOTSUP
              The implementation does not support the association of a file
              descriptor with a directory.

CONFORMING TO         top

       POSIX.1-2008.  This function was a BSD extension, present in 4.3BSD-Reno, not
       in 4.2BSD.

NOTES         top

       The prototype for dirfd() is only available if _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE is
       defined.

SEE ALSO         top

       open(2), closedir(3), opendir(3), readdir(3), rewinddir(3), scandir(3),
       seekdir(3), telldir(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
       at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                                 2008-08-21                             DIRFD(3)