SCANDIR Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3) Updated: 11 April 2025 Index   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   Index NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION RETURN VALUE ERRORS CONFORMING TO EXAMPLE SEE ALSO This document was created by using the manual pages. Time: 11:58:05 GMT, March 24, 2025