Todd C. Miller [todd.mil...@courtesan.com] wrote: > >From source inspection, Net and Free appear to allow read(2) of > dirs to succeed. However, since Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris have > the EISDIR behavior I think it is probably safe from a portability > standpoint. > > We're long past the days when opendir(3)/readdir(3) used read(2)... > > HP-UX and AIX still allow reads of directories but no one cares > about them ;-) >
I've personally always liked being able to cat / read() a directory since it gives you a peek behind the curtain and reflects the reality of how the filesystem is constructed.