Why do directory listings contain the current (.) and parent (..) directory?

Question

Whenever I list the contents of a directory with a function like readdir, the returned file names also include "." and "..". I have the suspicion that these are just normal links in the file system and therefore indistinguishable from actual files, but I always have to filter them out because they are not actual objects in the directory I am listing. Is there a good reason for functions like readdir to include them? Do some operating systems or file systems contain more or different virtual file names? Is there a better way to filter them out other than by doing string comparison with "." and ".."?

Update: thank you all for answering. I suppose I always thought that things like ./ and ../ were mere conventions that could be handled by searching and replacing. I find it a bit surprising, though probably more efficient and transparent, to have them be part of the file system itself.

One question remains, though: since . and .. are arbitrary names for these links, are there file systems that use different ones?

Answer 1

. and .. are actually hard links in filesystems. They are needed so that you can specify relative paths, based on some reference path (consider "../sibling/file.txt"). Since these hard links are actually existing in the filesystem, it makes sense for readdir to tell you about them. (actually the term hard link just means some name that is indistinguishable from the actual directory referred to: they both point to the same inode in the filesystem).

Best way is to just strcmp and ignore them, if you don't want to list them.