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From: psc@lzaz.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: How do you read an MS-DOS directory?
Message-ID: <63@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Date: Wed, 13-May-87 12:06:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: lzaz.63
Posted: Wed May 13 12:06:57 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 03:32:14 EDT
Organization: AT&T Transaction Services, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 22

Maybe I'm missing the point, but I can't see any way to read a
directory (or subdirectory) using the DOS functions.  The obvious thing
is to just open "FOO" (or "FOO."), but I got an "Access denied" error
code.  I supposed I could use the BIOS diskette services to find the
FAT, and chain my way through the root directory and any necessary
subdirectories till I find my subdirectory, calculating the sectors by
hand.  No, I'm not getting burned by the "c:\newline\backsp" bug (where
C programmers use backslash for DOS pathnames, and forget C also used
backslashes for magic characters).  I don't want to write to the
directory, only see what files are in it and how long they are (without
reading all of all the files), perhaps recursively.

There are forty-two thousand versions of the UNIX(R) ls command for
DOS, so it can't be *that* hard . . . unless there's a DOS stat()
function in the C library you're using.  There will be in the next
version of the one I'm using, I hope.  (Don't ask.)

Follow up if you must, reply by mail if you can; I'll summarize.

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, UUCP {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,vax135,mtune}!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.