How do you get a directory listing in C?

The following POSIX program will print the names of the files in the current directory:

#define _XOPEN_SOURCE 700
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>

int main (void)
{
  DIR *dp;
  struct dirent *ep;     
  dp = opendir ("./");

  if (dp != NULL)
  {
    while (ep = readdir (dp))
      puts (ep->d_name);

    (void) closedir (dp);
  }
  else
    perror ("Couldn't open the directory");

  return 0;
}

Credit: http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/libc/Simple-Directory-Lister.html

Tested in Ubuntu 16.04.

The strict answer is "you can't", as the very concept of a folder is not truly cross-platform.

On MS platforms you can use _findfirst, _findnext and _findclose for a 'c' sort of feel, and FindFirstFile and FindNextFile for the underlying Win32 calls.

Here's the C-FAQ answer:

http://c-faq.com/osdep/readdir.html

I've created an open source (BSD) C header that deals with this problem. It currently supports POSIX and Windows. Please check it out:

https://github.com/cxong/tinydir

tinydir_dir dir;
tinydir_open(&dir, "/path/to/dir");

while (dir.has_next)
{
    tinydir_file file;
    tinydir_readfile(&dir, &file);

    printf("%s", file.name);
    if (file.is_dir)
    {
        printf("/");
    }
    printf("\n");

    tinydir_next(&dir);
}

tinydir_close(&dir);

There is no standard C (or C++) way to enumerate files in a directory.

Under Windows you can use the FindFirstFile/FindNextFile functions to enumerate all entries in a directory. Under Linux/OSX use the opendir/readdir/closedir functions.

How do you get a directory listing in C?

Related

Recent Posts