List directory in Go

Question

I\'ve been trying to figure out how to simply list the files and folders in a single directory in Go.

I\'ve found filepath.Walk, but it goes into sub-directories aut

Answer 1

Go 1.16 (Q1 2021) will propose, with CL 243908 and CL 243914 , the ReadDir function, based on the FS interface:

// An FS provides access to a hierarchical file system.
//
// The FS interface is the minimum implementation required of the file system.
// A file system may implement additional interfaces,
// such as fsutil.ReadFileFS, to provide additional or optimized functionality.
// See io/fsutil for details.
type FS interface {
    // Open opens the named file.
    //
    // When Open returns an error, it should be of type *PathError
    // with the Op field set to "open", the Path field set to name,
    // and the Err field describing the problem.
    //
    // Open should reject attempts to open names that do not satisfy
    // ValidPath(name), returning a *PathError with Err set to
    // ErrInvalid or ErrNotExist.
    Open(name string) (File, error)
}

That allows for "os: add ReadDir method for lightweight directory reading":
See commit a4ede9f:

// ReadDir reads the contents of the directory associated with the file f
// and returns a slice of DirEntry values in directory order.
// Subsequent calls on the same file will yield later DirEntry records in the directory.
//
// If n > 0, ReadDir returns at most n DirEntry records.
// In this case, if ReadDir returns an empty slice, it will return an error explaining why.
// At the end of a directory, the error is io.EOF.
//
// If n <= 0, ReadDir returns all the DirEntry records remaining in the directory.
// When it succeeds, it returns a nil error (not io.EOF).
func (f *File) ReadDir(n int) ([]DirEntry, error) 

// A DirEntry is an entry read from a directory (using the ReadDir method).
type DirEntry interface {
    // Name returns the name of the file (or subdirectory) described by the entry.
    // This name is only the final element of the path, not the entire path.
    // For example, Name would return "hello.go" not "/home/gopher/hello.go".
    Name() string
    
    // IsDir reports whether the entry describes a subdirectory.
    IsDir() bool
    
    // Type returns the type bits for the entry.
    // The type bits are a subset of the usual FileMode bits, those returned by the FileMode.Type method.
    Type() os.FileMode
    
    // Info returns the FileInfo for the file or subdirectory described by the entry.
    // The returned FileInfo may be from the time of the original directory read
    // or from the time of the call to Info. If the file has been removed or renamed
    // since the directory read, Info may return an error satisfying errors.Is(err, ErrNotExist).
    // If the entry denotes a symbolic link, Info reports the information about the link itself,
    // not the link's target.
    Info() (FileInfo, error)
}

src/os/os_test.go#testReadDir() illustrates its usage:

    file, err := Open(dir)
    if err != nil {
        t.Fatalf("open %q failed: %v", dir, err)
    }
    defer file.Close()
    s, err2 := file.ReadDir(-1)
    if err2 != nil {
        t.Fatalf("ReadDir %q failed: %v", dir, err2)
    }