# phpman > man > readdir(3am)

[READDIR(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/READDIR/3am/markdown)                          GNU Awk Extension Modules                         [READDIR(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/READDIR/3am/markdown)



## NAME
       readdir - directory input parser for gawk

## SYNOPSIS
       @load "readdir"

## DESCRIPTION
       The _readdir_ extension adds an input parser for directories.

       When  this extension is in use, instead of skipping directories named on the command line (or
       with **getline**), they are read, with each entry returned as a record.

       The record consists of three fields. The first two are the inode  number  and  the  filename,
       separated  by  a  forward slash character.  On systems where the directory entry contains the
       file type, the record has a third field which is a single letter indicating the type  of  the
       file:  **f**  for  file, **d** for directory, **b** for a block device, **c** for a character device, **p** for a
       FIFO, **l** for a symbolic link, **s** for a socket.

       On systems without the file type information, the extension falls back to calling [_stat_(2)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/stat/2/markdown), in
       order to provide the information.  Thus the third field should never be **u**.

       By  default,  if a directory cannot be opened (due to permission problems, for example), _gawk_
       will exit.  As with regular files, this situation can be handled using a **BEGINFILE** rule  that
       checks **ERRNO** and prints an error or otherwise handles the problem.

## EXAMPLE
       @load "readdir"
       ...
       BEGIN { FS = "/" }
       { print "file name is", $2 }

## SEE ALSO
       _GAWK:_  _Effective_ _AWK_ _Programming_, [_filefuncs_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/filefuncs/3am/markdown), [_fnmatch_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/fnmatch/3am/markdown), [_fork_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/fork/3am/markdown), [_inplace_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/inplace/3am/markdown), _ord__‐
       [_chr_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/chr/3am/markdown), [_readfile_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/readfile/3am/markdown), [_revoutput_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/revoutput/3am/markdown), [_rwarray_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/rwarray/3am/markdown), [_time_(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/time/3am/markdown).

       [_opendir_(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/opendir/3/markdown), [_readdir_(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/readdir/3/markdown), [_stat_(2)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/stat/2/markdown).

## AUTHOR
       Arnold Robbins, **<arnold@skeeve.com>**.

## COPYING PERMISSIONS
       Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual page provided the
       copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

       Permission  is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual page under the
       conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is  distrib‐
       uted under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

       Permission  is  granted  to copy and distribute translations of this manual page into another
       language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this  permission  no‐
       tice may be stated in a translation approved by the Foundation.



Free Software Foundation                     Oct 30 2019                                [READDIR(3am)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/READDIR/3am/markdown)