.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)dir.5 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94 .\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man5/dir.5,v 1.12.2.5 2001/12/17 11:30:13 ru Exp $ .\" $DragonFly: src/share/man/man5/dir.5,v 1.7 2006/05/26 19:39:40 swildner Exp $ .\" .Dd March 5, 2005 .Dt DIR 5 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm dir , .Nm dirent .Nd directory file format .Sh SYNOPSIS .In dirent.h .Sh DESCRIPTION Directories provide a convenient hierarchical method of grouping files while obscuring the underlying details of the storage medium. A directory file is differentiated from a plain file by a flag in its .Xr inode 5 entry. It consists of records (directory entries) each of which contains information about a file and a pointer to the file itself. Directory entries may contain other directories as well as plain files; such nested directories are referred to as subdirectories. A hierarchy of directories and files is formed in this manner and is called a file system (or referred to as a file system tree). .\" An entry in this tree, .\" nested or not nested, .\" is a pathname. .Pp Each directory file contains two special directory entries; one is a pointer to the directory itself called dot .Ql .\& and the other a pointer to its parent directory called dot-dot .Ql \&.. . Dot and dot-dot are valid pathnames, however, the system root directory .Ql / , has no parent and dot-dot points to itself like dot. .Pp File system nodes are ordinary directory files on which has been grafted a file system object, such as a physical disk or a partitioned area of such a disk. (See .Xr mount 2 and .Xr mount 8 . ) .Pp The directory entry format is defined in .In sys/dirent.h . This file should not be included directly by applications. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr fs 5 , .Xr inode 5 .Sh HISTORY A .Nm file format appeared in .At v7 . .Sh BUGS The usage of the member d_type of struct dirent is unportable as it is .Dx Ns / Ns Fx Ns -specific . It also may fail on certain filesystems, for example the cd9660 filesystem.