Warning: This is the manual of the legacy Guile 2.0 series. You may want to read the manual of the current stable series instead.

7.11 File Tree Walk

The functions in this section traverse a tree of files and directories. They come in two flavors: the first one is a high-level functional interface, and the second one is similar to the C ftw and nftw routines (see Working with Directory Trees in GNU C Library Reference Manual).

(use-modules (ice-9 ftw))

Scheme Procedure: file-system-tree file-name [enter? [stat]]

Return a tree of the form (file-name stat children ...) where stat is the result of (stat file-name) and children are similar structures for each file contained in file-name when it designates a directory.

The optional enter? predicate is invoked as (enter? name stat) and should return true to allow recursion into directory name; the default value is a procedure that always returns #t. When a directory does not match enter?, it nonetheless appears in the resulting tree, only with zero children.

The stat argument is optional and defaults to lstat, as for file-system-fold (see below.)

The example below shows how to obtain a hierarchical listing of the files under the module/language directory in the Guile source tree, discarding their stat info:

(use-modules (ice-9 match))

(define remove-stat
  ;; Remove the `stat' object the `file-system-tree' provides
  ;; for each file in the tree.
  (match-lambda
    ((name stat)              ; flat file
     name)
    ((name stat children ...) ; directory
     (list name (map remove-stat children)))))

(let ((dir (string-append (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'top_srcdir)
                          "/module/language")))
  (remove-stat (file-system-tree dir)))

⇒
("language"
 (("value" ("spec.go" "spec.scm"))
  ("scheme"
   ("spec.go"
    "spec.scm"
    "compile-tree-il.scm"
    "decompile-tree-il.scm"
    "decompile-tree-il.go"
    "compile-tree-il.go"))
  ("tree-il"
   ("spec.go"
    "fix-letrec.go"
    "inline.go"
    "fix-letrec.scm"
    "compile-glil.go"
    "spec.scm"
    "optimize.scm"
    "primitives.scm"
    …))
  …))

It is often desirable to process directories entries directly, rather than building up a tree of entries in memory, like file-system-tree does. The following procedure, a combinator, is designed to allow directory entries to be processed directly as a directory tree is traversed; in fact, file-system-tree is implemented in terms of it.

Scheme Procedure: file-system-fold enter? leaf down up skip error init file-name [stat]

Traverse the directory at file-name, recursively, and return the result of the successive applications of the leaf, down, up, and skip procedures as described below.

Enter sub-directories only when (enter? path stat result) returns true. When a sub-directory is entered, call (down path stat result), where path is the path of the sub-directory and stat the result of (false-if-exception (stat path)); when it is left, call (up path stat result).

For each file in a directory, call (leaf path stat result).

When enter? returns #f, or when an unreadable directory is encountered, call (skip path stat result).

When file-name names a flat file, (leaf path stat init) is returned.

When an opendir or stat call fails, call (error path stat errno result), with errno being the operating system error number that was raised—e.g., EACCES—and stat either #f or the result of the stat call for that entry, when available.

The special . and .. entries are not passed to these procedures. The path argument to the procedures is a full file name—e.g., "../foo/bar/gnu"; if file-name is an absolute file name, then path is also an absolute file name. Files and directories, as identified by their device/inode number pair, are traversed only once.

The optional stat argument defaults to lstat, which means that symbolic links are not followed; the stat procedure can be used instead when symbolic links are to be followed (see stat).

The example below illustrates the use of file-system-fold:

(define (total-file-size file-name)
  "Return the size in bytes of the files under FILE-NAME (similar
to `du --apparent-size' with GNU Coreutils.)"

  (define (enter? name stat result)
    ;; Skip version control directories.
    (not (member (basename name) '(".git" ".svn" "CVS"))))
  (define (leaf name stat result)
    ;; Return RESULT plus the size of the file at NAME.
    (+ result (stat:size stat)))

  ;; Count zero bytes for directories.
  (define (down name stat result) result)
  (define (up name stat result) result)

  ;; Likewise for skipped directories.
  (define (skip name stat result) result)

  ;; Ignore unreadable files/directories but warn the user.
  (define (error name stat errno result)
    (format (current-error-port) "warning: ~a: ~a~%"
            name (strerror errno))
    result)

  (file-system-fold enter? leaf down up skip error
                           0  ; initial counter is zero bytes
                           file-name))

(total-file-size ".")
⇒ 8217554

(total-file-size "/dev/null")
⇒ 0

The alternative C-like functions are described below.

Scheme Procedure: scandir name [select? [entry<?]]

Return the list of the names of files contained in directory name that match predicate select? (by default, all files). The returned list of file names is sorted according to entry<?, which defaults to string-locale<? such that file names are sorted in the locale’s alphabetical order (see Text Collation). Return #f when name is unreadable or is not a directory.

This procedure is modeled after the C library function of the same name (see Scanning Directory Content in GNU C Library Reference Manual).

Scheme Procedure: ftw startname proc ['hash-size n]

Walk the file system tree descending from startname, calling proc for each file and directory.

Hard links and symbolic links are followed. A file or directory is reported to proc only once, and skipped if seen again in another place. One consequence of this is that ftw is safe against circularly linked directory structures.

Each proc call is (proc filename statinfo flag) and it should return #t to continue, or any other value to stop.

filename is the item visited, being startname plus a further path and the name of the item. statinfo is the return from stat (see File System) on filename. flag is one of the following symbols,

regular

filename is a file, this includes special files like devices, named pipes, etc.

directory

filename is a directory.

invalid-stat

An error occurred when calling stat, so nothing is known. statinfo is #f in this case.

directory-not-readable

filename is a directory, but one which cannot be read and hence won’t be recursed into.

symlink

filename is a dangling symbolic link. Symbolic links are normally followed and their target reported, the link itself is reported if the target does not exist.

The return value from ftw is #t if it ran to completion, or otherwise the non-#t value from proc which caused the stop.

Optional argument symbol hash-size and an integer can be given to set the size of the hash table used to track items already visited. (see Hash Table Reference)

In the current implementation, returning non-#t from proc is the only valid way to terminate ftw. proc must not use throw or similar to escape.

Scheme Procedure: nftw startname proc ['chdir] ['depth] ['hash-size n] ['mount] ['physical]

Walk the file system tree starting at startname, calling proc for each file and directory. nftw has extra features over the basic ftw described above.

Like ftw, hard links and symbolic links are followed. A file or directory is reported to proc only once, and skipped if seen again in another place. One consequence of this is that nftw is safe against circular linked directory structures.

Each proc call is (proc filename statinfo flag base level) and it should return #t to continue, or any other value to stop.

filename is the item visited, being startname plus a further path and the name of the item. statinfo is the return from stat on filename (see File System). base is an integer offset into filename which is where the basename for this item begins. level is an integer giving the directory nesting level, starting from 0 for the contents of startname (or that item itself if it’s a file). flag is one of the following symbols,

regular

filename is a file, including special files like devices, named pipes, etc.

directory

filename is a directory.

directory-processed

filename is a directory, and its contents have all been visited. This flag is given instead of directory when the depth option below is used.

invalid-stat

An error occurred when applying stat to filename, so nothing is known about it. statinfo is #f in this case.

directory-not-readable

filename is a directory, but one which cannot be read and hence won’t be recursed into.

stale-symlink

filename is a dangling symbolic link. Links are normally followed and their target reported, the link itself is reported if its target does not exist.

symlink

When the physical option described below is used, this indicates filename is a symbolic link whose target exists (and is not being followed).

The following optional arguments can be given to modify the way nftw works. Each is passed as a symbol (and hash-size takes a following integer value).

chdir

Change to the directory containing the item before calling proc. When nftw returns the original current directory is restored.

Under this option, generally the base parameter to each proc call should be used to pick out the base part of the filename. The filename is still a path but with a changed directory it won’t be valid (unless the startname directory was absolute).

depth

Visit files “depth first”, meaning proc is called for the contents of each directory before it’s called for the directory itself. Normally a directory is reported first, then its contents.

Under this option, the flag to proc for a directory is directory-processed instead of directory.

hash-size n

Set the size of the hash table used to track items already visited. (see Hash Table Reference)

mount

Don’t cross a mount point, meaning only visit items on the same file system as startname (ie. the same stat:dev).

physical

Don’t follow symbolic links, instead report them to proc as symlink. Dangling links (those whose target doesn’t exist) are still reported as stale-symlink.

The return value from nftw is #t if it ran to completion, or otherwise the non-#t value from proc which caused the stop.

In the current implementation, returning non-#t from proc is the only valid way to terminate ftw. proc must not use throw or similar to escape.