programming with directories
 

I want to write a console program to read/write the directory tree, how is it possible?

Thanks in advance,

John

well it's perfectly possible... nearly any programming or scripting language can do this, you just need to use it right... did you have any useful specifics???

I want to be able to do it in C++. I don't think it is possible without linking to the kernel source, but I am not sure which header files are necessary or which functions are available.

You don't need the kernel source to write simple C or C++ programs. You need the kernel source only when you compile programs using kernel headers and such things.

Here's a small demo.

If you're doing CPP you need g++ and cpp extensions:

cd /tmp
cat << _EOF_ > hello.cpp
#include <stdio.h>

int main (void)
{
printf( "hello world in CPP!\n" );
}
_EOF_
g++ hello.cpp -o hellocpp
./hellocpp

If you write C programs use .c extensions and gcc.

cd /tmp
cat << _EOF_ > hello.c
#include <stdio.h>

int main (void)
{
printf( "hello world in C!\n" );
}
_EOF_
g++ hello.c -o helloc
./helloc

thanks for the reply, but i am asking how to read and write the directory tree with c++. for instance, i would like to be able to display all of the directories and their contents in the file system.

Well there were two questions:
1- is it possible to compile w/o kernel source
2- how to process file trees in cpp

I answered 1 by explaining how to compile a simple cpp prog. It it works for you too it prooves you can write your program on your system.

You'll find answer to question #2 by reading the language reference. If what you need to is not too complex, then you should learn bash scripting or similar languages (python, perl).

this is no joke if you decided what to do next with the content of the directories

anyway you can try these C functions :
scandir, closedir, dirfd, opendir, rewinddir, seekdir, telldir , readdir

use "man 3" for quick reference then hunt for full examples on the net.

good luck

I also had a class in assembly language in college. I found it was usefull later on when I would use a debugger.

thanks alred, i was looking for the C/C++ commands to do so. i searched google for the functions you suggested and found they are available in "dirent.h" in the kernel source.

I am fairly certain that they are also in glibc which would be better to compile against.