readdir function returns inconsistent d_type

[Veiokej]

Due to lack of time, I can't investigate this, but I repeatedly observed it. Basically, when you call readdir, it returns a struct dirent. The d_type field is supposed to be DT_LNK for symbolic links when _DIRENT_HAVE_D_TYPE is known to the compiler (which it is). This is usually true, for example /usr/bin/X11 is a circularly-referential symbolic link with DT_LNK asserted. But when I install an Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit desktop image to a USB stick (using either Startup Disk Creator or the Disk utility, sorry I don't recall), I get a similar circularly-referential directory called "ubuntu". This symbolic link does not have DT_LNK set. lstat can get around this problem and see the link attribute, but the bug here is that d_type is not the expected value. I based all this on "man readdir", so it might be just a doc bug.

By "circularly referential", I mean a symbolic link to "." (current folder).

[Egmont Koblinger (egmont-gmail)]

"man readdir" also says:

       Currently, only some filesystems (among them: Btrfs, ext2, ext3, and
       ext4) have full support for returning the file type in d_type. All
       applications must properly handle a return of DT_UNKNOWN.

You need to do an lstat in this case, as you said. This is the expected behavior.

This has absolutely nothing to do with gnome-terminal.