NAME

       scandir, alphasort - scan a directory for matching entries

SYNOPSIS

       #include <dirent.h>

       int scandir(const char *dir, struct dirent ***namelist,
              int (*select)(const struct dirent *),
              int (*compar)(const struct dirent **, const struct dirent **));

       int alphasort(const struct dirent **a, const struct dirent **b);

DESCRIPTION

       The  scandir()  function  scans the directory dir, calling select() on each directory entry.  Entries for
       which select() returns non-zero are stored in strings allocated via malloc(), sorted using  qsort()  with
       the  comparison  function  compar(), and collected in array namelist which is allocated via malloc().  If
       select is NULL, all entries are selected.

       The alphasort() function can be used as the comparison function for the scandir() function  to  sort  the
       directory  entries  into  alphabetical  order.  Its parameters are the two directory entries, a and b, to
       compare.

RETURN VALUE

       The scandir() function returns the number of directory entries selected or -1 if an error occurs.

       The alphasort() function returns an integer less than, equal to,  or  greater  than  zero  if  the  first
       argument is considered to be respectively less than, equal to, or greater than the second.

ERRORS

       ENOMEM Insufficient memory to complete the operation.

CONFORMING TO

       BSD 4.3

EXAMPLE

       /* print files in current directory in reverse order */
       #include <dirent.h>
       main(){
           struct dirent **namelist;
           int n;

           n = scandir(".", &namelist, 0, alphasort);
           if (n < 0)
               perror("scandir");
           else
               while(n--) printf("%s\n", namelist[n]->d_name);
       }

SEE ALSO

       opendir(3), readdir(3), closedir(3), rewinddir(3), telldir(3), seekdir(3).

GNU                                               11 April 1996                                       SCANDIR(3)