.TH DIRREAD 2
.SH NAME
dirread \- read directory
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B
int dirread(int fd, Dir *buf, long nbytes)
.SH DESCRIPTION
The data returned by a
.IR read (2)
on a directory is a set of complete directory entries
in a machine-independent format, exactly equivalent to
the result of a
.IR stat (2)
on each file or subdirectory in the directory.
.I Dirread
decodes the directory entries into a machine-dependent form.
It reads from
.IR fd
and unpacks the data into
.B Dir
structures in
.I buf
(see
.IR stat (2)
for the layout of a
.BR Dir ).
.I Nbytes
is the size of
.BR buf ;
it should be a multiple of
.BR sizeof(Dir) .
Directory entries have length
.B DIRLEN
(defined in
.BR <libc.h> )
in machine-independent form.
A successful
.I read
of a directory always returns a multiple of
.BR DIRLEN ;
.I dirread
always returns a multiple of
.BR sizeof(Dir) .
.PP
.I Dirread
returns the number of bytes filled in
.BR buf ;
the number returned may be
less than the number requested.
The file offset is advanced by the number of bytes actually read.
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR intro (2),
.IR open (2),
.IR read (2)
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
Sets
.I errstr.