Dirent is a C/C++ programming interface that allows programmers to retrieve information about files and directories under Linux/UNIX. This project provides Linux compatible Dirent interface for Microsoft Windows.
Download the latest Dirent installation package from GitHub and unpack the installation file with 7-zip, for example. The installation package contains dirent.h file as well as a few example programs and tests.
To make dirent.h available for all C/C++ programs, simply copy the
include/dirent.h file to the 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 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, and you can start using Dirent immediately -- there is no need to add files to your Visual Studio project.
If you wish to distribute dirent.h alongside with your own source code, then
copy include/dirent.h file to a new sub-directory within your project and
add that directory to include path on Windows while omitting the directory
under Linux/UNIX. This allows your project to be compiled against native
dirent.h on Linux/UNIX while substituting the functionality on Microsoft
Windows.
The installation package contains four example programs:
| Program | Purpose |
|---|---|
| ls | List files in a directory, e.g. ls "c:\Program Files" |
| find | Find files in subdirectories, e.g. find "c:\Program Files\CMake" |
| updatedb | Build database of files in a drive, e.g. updatedb c:\ |
| locate | Locate a file from database, e.g. locate notepad.exe |
To build the example programs, install CMake. Then, open command prompt and create a build directory as
c:\
mkdir temp
mkdir temp\dirent
cd temp\dirent
Generate build files as
cmake .
Open Visual Studio, load the generated dirent.sln file from the build directory and build the solution. Once ready, you can run the example programs from the command prompt as
cd Debug
ls .
find .
updatedb c:\
locate cmd.exe
Dirent may be freely distributed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for details.
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!