How to list ALL the FILES in a DRIVE and ITS FOLDERS AS WELL AS ITS SUB FOLDER!?

[3hMz8vqX]

Hi all,
How will you list all ONLY the files in the entire drive?
for example,
I want to print the file path of all files in it as well as the files in the folder and its subdirs?
ONLY THE FILE PATH!!!
Thankyou everyone in advance!!! :)

[LB]

Check out boost filesystem. Using the Windows API is a pain for this.

[naturalphilosophy]

it can be solved without programming.
1. open cmd
2. write following line
dir d: /a /s /b > d:/files_path.txt
3. now, d:/files_path.txt include paths of all files.

meaning
d:
search d drive
/a
show all files
/s
search subdirectory, too
/b
bare format
> d:/files_path.txt
save result into d:/files_path.txt

[3hMz8vqX]

Thankyou, is there any way using WINAPI???
Regards,
Aravind.

[13bSLyTq]

Hi,

No point, winapi will not only make the code platform specific besides implementing this in winapi is more difficult and requires more code.

[Computergeek01]

To answer your question though you would use FindFirstFile(), FindNextFile() and the WIN32_FIND_DATA struct

void FindAllFiles(std::string FolderName)
{

WIN32_FIND_DATA FileData;

HANDLE FirstFile = FindFirstFile(&FolderName[0], &FileData);

while(FindNextFile(FirstFile, &FileData))
{
      if(isalpha(FileData.cFileName[0])
     {
         if(FileData.dwFileAttributes != FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)
         {
              std::cout << FileData.cFileName << std::endl;
         }
         else
         {
            std::string NewPath = FolderName + FileData.cFileName;
            NewPath = NewPath + "\\*.*";

             FindAllFiles(NewPath);
         }
     }
}

}

Or something like that, I didn't try this code but the basic idea is there. Keep in mind that for the ANSI version of FindFirstFile() the length is limited to MAX_PATH, so more about this in the link below.


- FindFirstFile(): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364418(v=vs.85).aspx

- FindNextFile(): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364428(v=vs.85).aspx

- WIN32_FIND_DATA: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365740(v=vs.85).aspx

- File Attribute Constants: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/gg258117(v=vs.85).aspx

[3hMz8vqX]

Thankyou very, very much!!!:)

[Duthomhas]

         if(FileData.dwFileAttributes & ~FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)
         {

[Computergeek01]

@ Duoas: It looks like it should be faster, it would be a few less push\pull instructions. I've always coded for readability and relied on the compilers ability to optimize for speed. Although I honestly don't know the limits to it's abilities in this regard.

[LB]

I don't think this is about speed, I think this is about meaning. Duoas is suggesting that dwFilAddtributes is a flag variable which, in the presence of more than once flag, will not be equal to any flag (and thus the inequality comparison will be true even for directories).

[3hMz8vqX]

Why cant you use :

if(file.dwFileAttributes!=FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)

...?
because its not working my code does not print anything?

[LB]

Because Duoas is correct.

[Computergeek01]

@ LB: dwFileAttributes is a DWORD, which is an unsigned int so "!=" should be fine. I use this code (actually the inverse of it) in production and it's never given me any trouble.

@OP: My sample code doesn't have any error checking, I would start by adding that to make sure that FindFirstFile() returns a valid HANDLE.

[coachdevie]

Beautiful .. i was looking for code like this thanks a lot!

[LB]

Computergeek01 wrote:

@ LB: dwFileAttributes is a DWORD, which is an unsigned int so "!=" should be fine. I use this code (actually the inverse of it) in production and it's never given me any trouble.

Pretty sure with flag-based variables it doesn't work like that.

[Computergeek01]

@ LB: I figured out what he was saying, and you were close with that example you deleted. Duoas was pointing out that a file\folder can have a combination of attributes and my code doesn't account for that. For example if a folder was hidden then it's dwFileAttribues value would be at least 18 (FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY + FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN) and my code would over look it.

[LB]

L B wrote:

I don't think this is about speed, I think this is about meaning. Duoas is suggesting that dwFilAddtributes is a flag variable which, in the presence of more than once flag, will not be equal to any flag (and thus the inequality comparison will be true even for directories).

:(

[Computergeek01]

@ LB: Yes you were right, I'm not really paying enough attention to any particular thing right now so don't take it personally. I should be focusing on the 13 laptops that are 75 miles away from me and keep going to sleep while I'm trying to update Java on them. But because I'm a terrible employee I'm here instead because dividing my attention like this keeps me calm for some reason.

@ OP: How's that error reporting look? Did you find out what went wrong?