Gio.File.enumerate_children
Description: Reference for Gio.File.enumerate_children

### Virtual Method

# Gio Fileenumerate_children

#### Declaration [src]

    GFileEnumerator*
    enumerate_children (
      GFile* file,
      const char* attributes,
      GFileQueryInfoFlags flags,
      GCancellable* cancellable,
      GError** error
    )

#### Description [src]

Gets the requested information about the files in a directory. The result is a `GFileEnumerator` object that will give out `GFileInfo` objects for all the files in the directory.

The `attributes` value is a string that specifies the file attributes that should be gathered. It is not an error if it’s not possible to read a particular requested attribute from a file - it just won’t be set. `attributes` should be a comma-separated list of attributes or attribute wildcards. The wildcard “” means all attributes, and a wildcard like “standard::” means all attributes in the standard namespace. An example attribute query be “standard::*,owner::user”. The standard attributes are available as defines, like `G_FILE_ATTRIBUTE_STANDARD_NAME`. `G_FILE_ATTRIBUTE_STANDARD_NAME` should always be specified if you plan to call `g_file_enumerator_get_child()` or `g_file_enumerator_iterate()` on the returned enumerator.

If `cancellable` is not `NULL`, then the operation can be cancelled by triggering the cancellable object from another thread. If the operation was cancelled, the error `G_IO_ERROR_CANCELLED` will be returned.

If the file does not exist, the `G_IO_ERROR_NOT_FOUND` error will be returned. If the file is not a directory, the `G_IO_ERROR_NOT_DIRECTORY` error will be returned. Other errors are possible too.

#### Parameters

`attributes`

  Type: `const char*`

  An attribute query string.

  The data is owned by the caller of the method.
  The value is a NUL terminated UTF-8 string.

`flags`

  Type: `GFileQueryInfoFlags`

  A set of `GFileQueryInfoFlags`.

`cancellable`

  Type: `GCancellable`

  Optional `GCancellable` object, `NULL` to ignore.

  The argument can be `NULL`.
  The data is owned by the caller of the method.

`error`

  Type: `GError **`

  The return location for a recoverable error.

  The argument can be `NULL`.
  If the return location is not `NULL`, then you must initialize it to a `NULL` `GError*`.
  The argument will be left initialized to `NULL` by the virtual function if there are no errors.
  In case of error, the argument will be set to a newly allocated `GError`; the caller will take ownership of the data, and be responsible for freeing it.

#### Return value

Type: `GFileEnumerator`

A `GFileEnumerator` if successful, `NULL` on error. Free the returned object with g_object_unref().

The caller of the method takes ownership of the returned data, and is responsible for freeing it.