Returns file or directory names from a specified directory, or returns a drive volume label.

Syntax

Dir[$] [ ( fileSpec [ , attributeMask ] ) ]

Elements

fileSpec

A string expression that specifies a path and the file names you want returned. The argument is required only for the first call to Dir$ for any path.

Standard wildcard characters can be used in fileSpec to designate all files satisfying the wildcard criterion. Asterisk ( * ) for either the file name or the extension designates all files with any characters in that position. Question mark ( ? ) in any character position in either part of the name designates any single character in that position.

An integer expression whose value specifies what names should be returned. If this argument is omitted, the names of normal files that match fileSpec are returned. If you supply an attributeMask argument, you must supply a fileSpec argument.

Dir$ always returns the names of normal files. To include other files in the returned list of file names, specify the sum of those values in the following table that correspond to the desired kinds of files:

Mask	File attribute	Constant
0	Normal file	ATTR_NORMAL
2	Hidden file	ATTR_HIDDEN
4	System file	ATTR_SYSTEM
8	Volume label	ATTR_VOLUME. If any other attribute is specified, ATTR_VOLUME is ignored.
16	Directory	ATTR_DIRECTORY

Dir returns a Variant of DataType 8 (String), and Dir$ returns a String.

Note On any platform except Windows (16, 9x, NT, 2000) if you ask for just the volume label you will get an empty string.

Usage

The constants in the table are defined in the file lsconst.lss. Including this file in your script allows you to use constant names instead of their numeric values.

To determine whether a particular file exists, use an exact file name for the file_spec argument to Dir or Dir$. The return value is either the file name or, if the file does not exist, the empty string ("").

The first call to Dir or Dir$ returns the name of the first file in the specified directory that fits the file name specifications in the fileSpec argument. Then:

• Subsequent calls to Dir or Dir$ without an argument retrieve additional file names that match fileSpec. You can call the Dir function with no arguments as either Dir or Dir( ). You can call the Dir$ function with no arguments as either Dir$ or Dir$().
• If there are no more file names in the specified directory that match the specification, Dir returns a Variant of DataType 8 (String); Dir$ returns the empty string ("").

The Dir or Dir$ function may not be called recursively.

Example
See Also

LotusScript Language Reference: A through D
ChDir statement
CurDir function
%Include directive
Macintosh platform differences in LotusScript
UNIX platform differences in LotusScript
OS/400 platform differences in LotusScript

Glossary