closedir

Closes directories.

Format

#include  <dirent.h>

int closedir  (DIR *dir_pointer);

Argument

dir_pointer: Pointer to the dir structure of an open directory.

Description

This function closes a directory stream and frees the structure associated with the dir_pointer argument. Upon return, the value of dir_pointer does not necessarily point to an accessible object of the type DIR.

The type DIR, which is defined in the <dirent.h> header file, represents a directory stream that is an ordered sequence of all the directory entries in a particular directory. Directory entries represent files. You can remove files from or add files to a directory asynchronously to the operation of the readdir function.

Note: An open directory must always be closed with the closedir function to ensure that the next attempt to open the directory is successful.

Example

The following example shows how to search a directory for the entry name, using the opendir, readdir, and closedir functions:

len = strlen(name);
dir_pointer = opendir(".");
    for (dp = readdir(dir_pointer); dp != NULL; dp = readdir(dir_pointer))
        if (dp->d_namlen == len && !strcmp(dp->d_name, name)) {
   closedir(dir_pointer);
   return FOUND;
       }
   closedir(dir_pointer);
   return NOT_FOUND;

Return Values

0 Indicates success.

-1 Indicates an error and is further specified in the global errno.

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