Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfcdc!donn
From: donn@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Donn Terry)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: DIRECTORY (3C) strangeness
Message-ID: <5570332@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Nov 89 05:10:50 GMT
References: <616@mmlai.UUCP>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 18

(Almost?) all UNIX systems, not just HP-UX, return the directory enties in 
unspecified order.  (The actual order is a function of the order
in which the entries were created (and removed) and of the length of
the entries if you are using long file names.)

The simplest (although not the most efficient in terms of system
resources) solution to get what you want would be

	foo = popen("ls", "r");

and do freads from foo to get the names.

You could read them all with readdir() and use qsort(), or copy them
to an ordinary file and use the sort command via system().

Donn Terry
HP Ft. Collins
(No, I'm not speaking officially for HP, or anyone else for that matter.)