Missing files detection

I was wondering if there was any function or object that could detect in a directory
if a file is missing or present. I don't seem to find anything, but maybe is this possible
to achieve only using an "fstream" object?

I know from when I used to code in Visual Basic, that there was in VB an object,
named like "Directory_Info" or something like that, and with that object we could
work with the current working directory... But in C++ I can't find its equivalent...

Any clues?

I would use a combination of CreateFile() to load the file and GetLastError() to get what error is returned if there is one. To catch the error number of the "File not found" error, I would first create a small app that simply uses CreateFile() to load a file make sure it works. Once I'd know my code works, I'd simply remove that file of that directory and call GetLastError() to get that error code. Then you can use that error code to check if a file is missing. Don't forget to close the handle returned by CreateFile() if you don't plan on using it.

Edit: Close it after calling GetLastError() because an error could happen while closing it and the error code returned by GetLastError() wouldn't be the "File not found" error.

Try open it and then close it. If it opened we know it exists.

Code:

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using namespace std;

fstream testingFile;
testingFile.open("**The address of file here**", ios_base::in);
if( testingFile.is_open()) testingFile.close()  //Now we know file exists.
else  cerr<< "File not found or could not be opened"<<endl;

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Thanks, it worked with "GetLastError()". But that seem to catch every possible error,
so if I get an error before even opening up the file, maybe it will mess everything up...

you could use FindFirstFile() and FindNextFile() (MS-Windows) to get the list of all the files/folders in a specific folder. *nix would use opendir() and readdir(). I'm sure there are some portable boost library functions for that too.

Boost, in fact, has a simple exist() function that just returns true if the file exists. (Though it can be confused by permissions, i.e. if the file exists but is not accessible, it will return false.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikahell

Thanks, it worked with "GetLastError()". But that seem to catch every possible error,
so if I get an error before even opening up the file, maybe it will mess everything up...

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You can use SetLastError(0) before opening the file to clear the last error, I think.

You can also check the return value of CreateFile and only check GetLastError if an error actually occurred. But why use platform-specific methods when boost::filesystem::exist() is so easy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CornedBee

But why use platform-specific methods when boost::filesystem::exist() is so easy?

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because he may not be using boost. I would like to but my co won't let me. :(

"SetLastError(0)" worked fine, but about Boost, I could use it if I wanted it, because I'm just doing all this to learn things, but I'm not yet in a company... But I'll have to take a look at it.