From: "A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk>
To: DJGPP AT SUN DOT SOE DOT CLARKSON DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1995 15:14:11 BST
Subject: Reading a directory as if it was a file

  Is there any way in (interrupts usable under Gnu C) to read a directory as
if it was a file? I want to write my own program to explore directories. I
tried this method in a Gnu C++ program:-

unsigned char B[1000000]; int F,i,n;

EAX = 0x3d00; EDX = (uns int)"C:\\WORK"; interrupt 21; handle = EAX;
    /* open file */

EAX = 0x3f00; EBX = handle; ECX = 1000000; EDX = (uns int)B; interrupt 21;
n = EAX; /* read up to ECX characters into EDX etseq; n chars actually read */

  and then for(i=0;i<n;i++) print (B[i]>?' ') as text.

  But what I got was 18476 bytes of what looked like old djgpp scratch area
(assembler labels, gcc call options, binary rhubarb), with no sIgn of names of
files that I have under my C:\WORK\. When I repeated with (EDX in the
open-the-file call) pointing to the name of a text file, I got the text of the
file OK, so my method should work. Surely I should have got <either> the
directory as binary <or> a total refusal with an error value returned.