Manpages - seekdir.3p

This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer’s Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

seekdir — set the position of a directory stream

  #include <dirent.h>
  void seekdir(DIR *dirp, long loc);

The seekdir/() function shall set the position of the next /readdir/() operation on the directory stream specified by /dirp to the position specified by loc. The value of loc should have been returned from an earlier call to /telldir/() using the same directory stream. The new position reverts to the one associated with the directory stream when /telldir/() was performed.

If the value of loc was not obtained from an earlier call to /telldir/(), or if a call to /rewinddir/() occurred between the call to /telldir/() and the call to /seekdir/(), the results of subsequent calls to /readdir/() are unspecified.

The /seekdir/() function shall not return a value.

No errors are defined.

The following sections are informative.

None.

None.

The original standard developers perceived that there were restrictions on the use of the /seekdir/() and /telldir/() functions related to implementation details, and for that reason these functions need not be supported on all POSIX-conforming systems. They are required on implementations supporting the XSI option.

One of the perceived problems of implementation is that returning to a given point in a directory is quite difficult to describe formally, in spite of its intuitive appeal, when systems that use B-trees, hashing functions, or other similar mechanisms to order their directories are considered. The definition of /seekdir/() and /telldir/() does not specify whether, when using these interfaces, a given directory entry will be seen at all, or more than once.

On systems not supporting these functions, their capability can sometimes be accomplished by saving a filename found by /readdir/() and later using /rewinddir/() and a loop on /readdir/() to relocate the position from which the filename was saved.

None.

/fdopendir ( )/, /readdir ( )/, /telldir ( )/

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, <dirent.h>, <sys_types.h>

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology – Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

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