perl function seekdir

The seekdir function in Perl is used to reposition the directory pointer to a specified position within a directory. It is typically used when reading directories.

Here's an example of using seekdir to move the directory pointer to a specific position in a directory:

opendir DIR, "." or die $!;
seekdir DIR, 10; # move the directory pointer to position 10
my @files = readdir DIR; # read the next batch of files from the directory
closedir DIR;
print "@files\n"; # print the list of files starting at position 10

In this example, the opendir function is used to open the current directory for reading. The seekdir function is then used to move the directory pointer to position 10, which is the 11th entry in the directory. The readdir function is used to read the next batch of files from the directory, starting at the current directory position. The result is assigned to the array @files, which is then printed.

Note that the second argument to seekdir is the position in the directory, which is an opaque value returned by the telldir function. To move the directory pointer to a specific file or directory, you can use the rewinddir function to start at the beginning of the directory, and then iterate over the entries until you find the one you're looking for.

opendir DIR, "." or die $!;
rewinddir DIR; # start at the beginning of the directory
while (my $entry = readdir DIR) {
  next unless $entry eq "example.txt"; # look for a specific file
  last; # stop iterating once the file is found
}
my @files = readdir DIR; # read the next batch of files from the directory
closedir DIR;
print "@files\n"; # print the list of files starting after the specified file

In this example, the rewinddir function is used to start at the beginning of the directory. The readdir function is used to iterate over the entries in the directory, looking for a specific file (example.txt in this case). Once the file is found, the loop is stopped using the last keyword. The readdir function is then called again to read the next batch of files from the directory, starting after the specified file. The result is assigned to the array @files, which is then printed.