Lab 08: Files and Directories
Directory Access
Directories should not be accessed with the ordinary open, close and read functions.
Instead, they require specialized functions whose corresponding names end with "dir":
opendir, closedir and readdir.
The opendir function provides a handle of type DIR * to a directory stream that is
positioned at the first entry in the directory.
SYNOPSIS
#include <dirent.h>
DIR *opendir(const char *dirname);
POSIX
If successful, opendir returns a pointer to a directory object. If unsuccessful, opendir
returns a null pointer and sets errno.
The DIR type, which is defined in dirent.h represents a directory stream. A directory
stream is an ordered sequence of all of the directory entries in a particular directory. The
order of the entries in a directory stream is not necessarily alphabetical by file name.
The readdir function reads a directory by returning successive entries in a directory
stream pointed to by dirp. The readdir returns a pointer to a struct dirent structure
containing information about the next directory entry. The readdir moves the stream to
the next position after each call.
SYNOPSIS
#include <dirent.h>
struct dirent *readdir(DIR *dirp);
POSIX
If successful, readdir returns a pointer to a struct dirent structure containing
information about the next directory entry. If unsuccessful, readdir returns a NULL
pointer and sets errno. The only mandatory error is EOVERFLOW, which indicates that the
value in the structure to be returned cannot be represented correctly. The readdir
function also returns NULL to indicate the end of the directory, but in this case it does not
change errno.
The closedir function closes a directory stream, and the rewinddir function repositions
the directory stream at its beginning. Each function has a dirp parameter that
corresponds to an open directory stream.
SYNOPSIS
#include <dirent.h>
int closedir(DIR *dirp);
void rewinddir(DIR *dirp); POSIX
If successful, the closedir function returns 0. If unsuccessful, it returns –1 and sets
errno. The closedir function has no mandatory errors. The rewinddir function does
not return a value and has no errors defined.
Accessing file status information
This section describes three functions for retrieving file status information. The fstat
function accesses a file with an open file descriptor. The stat and lstat functions
access a file by name.
The lstat and stat functions each take two parameters. The path parameter specifies
the name of a file or symbolic link whose status is to be returned. If path does not
correspond to a symbolic link, both functions return the same results. When path is a
symbolic link, the lstat function returns information about the link whereas the stat
function returns information about the file referred to by the link. The buf parameter
points to a user-supplied buffer into which these functions store the information.
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/stat.h>
int lstat(const char *restrict path, struct stat *restrict buf);
int stat(const char *restrict path, struct stat *restrict buf);
POSIX
If successful, these functions return 0. If unsuccessful, they return –1 and set errno. The
restrict modifier on the arguments specifies that path and buf are not allowed to
overlap.
The struct stat structure, which is defined in sys/stat.h, contains at least the
following members.
dev_t st_dev; /* device ID of device containing file */
ino_t st_ino; /* file serial number */
mode_t st_mode; /* file mode */
nlink_t st_nlink; /* number of hard links */
uid_t st_uid; /* user ID of file */
gid_t st_gid; /* group ID of file */
off_t st_size; /* file size in bytes (regular files) */
/* path size (symbolic links) */
time_t st_atime; /* time of last access */
time_t st_mtime; /* time of last data modification */
time_t st_ctime; /* time of last file status change */
Task: Implement ls command:
NAME
ls - list directory contents
SYNOPSIS
ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuSUX nor --sort.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
-l use a long listing format
ls-l is used for listing directory contents in long format.
