Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: open problem | From | (Joseph H. Buehler) | Date | 17 Jan 1998 14:21:37 -0500 |
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Jason Watts <khg@m-net.arbornet.org> writes:
> Hi! > > If a dir is nothing but a file with dir entries, with its own > inode etc., why wasn't an open system call implemented for directories? > > How exectly does the opendir libr. routine work?
There was once a time when people did use open() to read directories. Then BSD changed what was in directories (14 character filenames were a major bummer), and broke a lot of code that knew what was in directories. So now everyone uses opendir() and doesn't worry about what is in directories.
Joe Buehler
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