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telldir(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | HISTORY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

telldir(3)               Library Functions Manual              telldir(3)

NAME         top

       telldir - return current location in directory stream

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <dirent.h>

       long telldir(DIR *dirp);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
   feature_test_macros(7)):

       telldir():
           _XOPEN_SOURCE
              || /* glibc >= 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
              || /* glibc <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION         top

       The telldir() function returns the current location associated
       with the directory stream dirp.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, the telldir() function returns the current location in
       the directory stream.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set
       to indicate the error.

ERRORS         top

       EBADF  Invalid directory stream descriptor dirp.

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       โ”Œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”
       โ”‚ Interface                            โ”‚ Attribute     โ”‚ Value   โ”‚
       โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
       โ”‚ telldir()                            โ”‚ Thread safety โ”‚ MT-Safe โ”‚
       โ””โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”˜

STANDARDS         top

       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY         top

       POSIX.1-2001, 4.3BSD.

       Up to glibc 2.1.1, the return type of telldir() was off_t.
       POSIX.1-2001 specifies long, and this is the type used since glibc
       2.1.2.

       In early filesystems, the value returned by telldir() was a simple
       file offset within a directory.  Modern filesystems use tree or
       hash structures, rather than flat tables, to represent
       directories.  On such filesystems, the value returned by telldir()
       (and used internally by readdir(3)) is a "cookie" that is used by
       the implementation to derive a position within a directory.
       Application programs should treat this strictly as an opaque
       value, making no assumptions about its contents.

SEE ALSO         top

       closedir(3), opendir(3), readdir(3), rewinddir(3), scandir(3),
       seekdir(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
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       the project can be found at 
       โŸจhttps://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/โŸฉ.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       โŸจhttps://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTINGโŸฉ.
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       man-pages@man7.org

Linux man-pages 6.18            2026-02-08                     telldir(3)

Pages that refer to this page: closedir(3),  dirfd(3),  opendir(3),  readdir(3),  rewinddir(3),  scandir(3),  seekdir(3)

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