benching / dirent

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

Dirent

Dirent is a C/C++ programming interface that allows programs to retrieve information on files and directories residing on a hard disk. Dirent is commonly found in Linux and other UNIX operating systems.

This project provides Linux-compatible Dirent interface for Microsoft Visual Studio and Open Watcom to be used on Microsoft Windows.

Installation

Download the latest Dirent installation package from softagalleria.net

Unpack the installation file with 7-zip, for example. The installation package contains dirent.h file as well as a few example programs and a Visual Studio 2008 project for compiling them. You will definitely need the include/dirent.h file.

Install Dirent for All Programs

To make dirent.h available for all programs, copy the include/dirent.h file from the installation package to 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 directory 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. Thus, you can start using Dirent immediately -- there is no need to add files to your Visual Studio project.

Embed Dirent into Your Own Program

As an alternative to the above installation method, you can also embed dirent.h into your own program -- just copy the include/dirent.h file to a suitable include directory in your project. However, if you do so, please make sure that you include dirent.h by

#include <dirent.h> /*good*/

and not

#include "dirent.h" /*bad*/

The former code instructs the compiler to look for dirent.h first from the system include directory and only then from your project specific include directory. This arrangement allows your program to compile cleanly under Linux against the dirent.h file provided by the operating system.

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!