Is it possible to use opendir repeatedly in C?

Question

I am trying to debug right now in C and am curious if it is alright to call opendir() repeatedly without having to first call closedir() because I am trying to run a loop to open sub-directories when the while-loop that calls readdir() encounters them. And I assume that closing the current directory would cause me to lose the ability to read it.

Answer 1

You can use opendir() repeatedly. Just keep your DIR *s and call closedir() when you're done with each.

Answer 2

Yes, you can do multiple opendir() calls. Be wary of symbolic link loops which could cause you to get into an infinite loop and consume all available memory.

Answer 3

You'll have to be careful not to leak the DIR* that you are collecting, but as long as you don't hit the file-descriptor limit you shouldn't have any problem with having multiple opendir() open at the same time.