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 softagalleria.net

Unpack the installation file with 7-zip, for example. The installation package contains dirent.h file as well as a few example programs.

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 some example programs and tests under the directories examples and tests. To run these programs, install CMake

Open command prompt, navigate to dirent directory with cd and generate build files as

cmake .

Load the generated dirent.sln file into Visual Studio and build the solution. Run the example programs from command prompt as

Debug\updatedb c:\
Debug\locate cmd.exe
Debug\ls .
Debug\find .

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!