| The class directory allows to read and explore the directories of the file systems of the operating system. |
| Function Type | subr |
| Arguments | a string |
| Return Value | an object of class directory |
| Description | never call directory-constructor directly but always through make-instance the string passed as argument must contain a valid directory name or path (absolute or relative); the constructor fails and returns nil if the name represents any other file type; globbing or pattern matching must be implemented explicitely, eventually in a child class |
| Example | (setq currentdir(make-instance directory "." )) |
| Function Type | subr |
| Arguments | an object of class directory |
| Return Value | the result of the destructor |
| Description | never call directory-destructor directly but always through destroy-instance ; the destructor closes the directory handle in the process but leaves the directory itself untouched |
| Example | (destroy-instance currentdir) |
| Function Type | subr |
| Arguments | a directory object, a list of keywords |
| Return Value | a list |
| Description | reads a line from the directory object passed as argument and returns it; the line is built accordingly to the keywords given as arguments; the keyword 'attributes adds an unsignedinteger containing the flags bits of the file; if the file is a symbolic link, the bits 16 to 31 contain the attribute of the link itself; see man 2 stat to find the values to test against to discriminate the files; the keyword 'created adds a string with the file creation date and time; the keyword 'modified adds a string with the file last modification date and time the keyword 'accessed adds a string with the file last access date and time the keyword 'size adds an integer containg the file size in bytes (up to 2^63-1); the keyword 'name adds a string with the file name if the file is a symbolic link, then: the keyword 'ln-created adds a string with the link creation date and time; the keyword 'ln-modified adds a string with the link last modification date and time the keyword 'ln-accessed adds a string with the link last access date and time the keyword 'ln-name adds a string with the file name; if the file is not a symbolic link, those keywords render always nil; all date and time strings are in the format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS |
| Example | (setq currentdir(make-instance directory "." )) (read-line currentdir 'modified 'attributes 'size 'name) => ("20061111155630" 0x41ed 328 "." ) |