Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ark1!nems!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: get the file directory
Keywords: directory
Message-ID: <20828@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 89 16:43:30 GMT
References: <1724@unccvax.UUCP> <11602@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 24

>In article <1724@unccvax.UUCP> cs00wsc@unccvax.UUCP (Shiang Chin) writes:
>>... I don't know what's wrong on my code.

(Well, for one thing, it is in the wrong newsgroup: it is a Unix-specific
question.  Merely because the directory reading is written in C does not
make directory-reading a C operation, and questions about reading Unix
directories belong in a Unix newsgroup---just as questions about reading
MS-DOS directories belong in an MS-DOS newsgroup.)

In article <11602@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>The main thing wrong is that you're attempting to read a directory
>as though it were an ordinary data file.  These days, that's a poor
>assumption, and you should always use the portable <dirent.h>
>interface to read directories.

Actually, the directory still *is* (almost) an ordinary data file; but
it is a data file with a complex format, not a simple collection of
fixed-length records.  Once you Reach Out over NFS (or are we allowed
to use the words `Reach Out' with NFS, that being a Sun system? :-) ),
however, directories are indeed not anything at all like ordinary data
files.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@cs.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris