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C/C++ library for retrieving information on files and directories

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Dirent

Dirent is a C/C++ programming interface that allows programmers to retrieve information about files and directories under Linux/UNIX. This project provides Linux compatible Dirent interface for Microsoft Windows.

How to Enable UTF-8 Support

By default, Dirent functions expect the directory names to be represented in the currently selected windows codepage. Moverover, Dirent functions return file names in the presently selected codepage. If you wish to use UTF-8 file names instead, then set the program's locale to ".utf8" or similar. For example, your C main program might look like-

#include <locale.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    setlocale(LC_ALL, "LC_CTYPE=.utf8");

    /*...*/
}

For more information on UTF-8 support, please see setlocale in Visual Studio C runtime library reference.

Installation

Download the latest Dirent installation package from GitHub and unpack the installation file with 7-zip, for example. The installation package contains include/dirent.h file as well as a few example and test programs.

Installing Dirent for All Programs

To make dirent.h available for all C/C++ programs, simply copy the include/dirent.h file to the system include directory. System include directory contains header files such as assert.h and windows.h. In Visual Studio 2008, for example, the system include may be found at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include.

Everything you need is included in the single dirent.h file, and you can start using Dirent immediately -- there is no need to add files to your Visual Studio project.

Embedding Dirent into Your Own Project

If you wish to distribute dirent.h alongside with your own source code, then copy include/dirent.h file to a new sub-directory within your project and add that directory to include path on Windows while omitting the directory under Linux/UNIX. This allows your project to be compiled against native dirent.h on Linux/UNIX while substituting the functionality on Microsoft Windows.

Examples

The installation package contains six example programs:

Program Purpose
ls List files in a directory, e.g. ls "c:\Program Files"
find Find files in subdirectories, e.g. find "c:\Program Files\CMake"
updatedb Build database of files in a drive, e.g. updatedb c:\
locate Locate a file from database, e.g. locate notepad
scandir Demonstrate scandir() function
cat Print a text file to screen

Please install CMake to build example and test programs. Then, open command prompt and create a temporary directory c:\temp\dirent for the build files as

c:\
mkdir temp
mkdir temp\dirent
cd temp\dirent

Generate build files as

cmake d:\dirent

where d:\dirent is the root directory of the Dirent package (containing this README.md file). If wish to omit example programs from the build, then append the option -DDIRENT_BUILD_TESTS=OFF to the CMake command line.

Once CMake is finished, open Visual Studio, load the generated dirent.sln file from the build directory and build the whole solution. Once the build completes, run the example programs ls, find, updatedb and locate from the command prompt as

cd Debug
ls .
find .
updatedb c:\
locate cmd.exe

Visual Studio project also contains a solution named check which can be used to verify that Dirent works as expected. Just build the solution from Visual Studio to run the test programs.

Contributing

We love to receive contributions from you. See the CONTRIBUTING file for details.

Copying

Dirent may be freely distributed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for details.

Alternatives to Dirent

I ported Dirent to Microsoft Windows in 1998 when only a few alternatives were available. However, the situation has changed since then and nowadays both Cygwin and MingW allow you to compile a great number of UNIX programs in Microsoft Windows. They both provide a full dirent API as well as many other UNIX APIs. MingW can even be used for commercial applications!

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