Recursive file search using C++ MFC? - c++

Question

What is the cleanest way to recursively search for files using C++ and MFC?
EDIT: Do any of these solutions offer the ability to use multiple filters through one pass? I guess with CFileFind I could filter on *.* and then write custom code to further filter into different file types. Does anything offer built-in multiple filters (ie. *.exe,*.dll)?
EDIT2: Just realized an obvious assumption that I was making that makes my previous EDIT invalid. If I am trying to do a recursive search with CFileFind, I have to use *.* as my wildcard because otherwise subdirectories won't be matched and no recursion will take place. So filtering on different file-extentions will have to be handled separately regardless.

Answer 1

Using CFileFind.
Take a look at this example from MSDN:
void Recurse(LPCTSTR pstr)
{
CFileFind finder;
// build a string with wildcards
CString strWildcard(pstr);
strWildcard += _T("\\*.*");
// start working for files
BOOL bWorking = finder.FindFile(strWildcard);
while (bWorking)
{
bWorking = finder.FindNextFile();
// skip . and .. files; otherwise, we'd
// recur infinitely!
if (finder.IsDots())
continue;
// if it's a directory, recursively search it
if (finder.IsDirectory())
{
CString str = finder.GetFilePath();
cout << (LPCTSTR) str << endl;
Recurse(str);
}
}
finder.Close();
}

Answer 2

Use Boost's Filesystem implementation!
The recursive example is even on the filesystem homepage:
bool find_file( const path & dir_path, // in this directory,
const std::string & file_name, // search for this name,
path & path_found ) // placing path here if found
{
if ( !exists( dir_path ) ) return false;
directory_iterator end_itr; // default construction yields past-the-end
for ( directory_iterator itr( dir_path );
itr != end_itr;
++itr )
{
if ( is_directory(itr->status()) )
{
if ( find_file( itr->path(), file_name, path_found ) ) return true;
}
else if ( itr->leaf() == file_name ) // see below
{
path_found = itr->path();
return true;
}
}
return false;
}

Answer 3

I know it is not your question, but it is also easy to to without recursion by using a CStringArray
void FindFiles(CString srcFolder)
{
CStringArray dirs;
dirs.Add(srcFolder + "\\*.*");
while(dirs.GetSize() > 0) {
CString dir = dirs.GetAt(0);
dirs.RemoveAt(0);
CFileFind ff;
BOOL good = ff.FindFile(dir);
while(good) {
good = ff.FindNextFile();
if(!ff.IsDots()) {
if(!ff.IsDirectory()) {
//process file
} else {
//new directory (and not . or ..)
dirs.InsertAt(0,nd + "\\*.*");
}
}
}
ff.Close();
}
}

Answer 4

Check out the recls library - stands for recursive ls - which is a recursive search library that works on UNIX and Windows. It's a C library with adaptations to different language, including C++. From memory, you can use it something like the following:
using recls::search_sequence;
CString dir = "C:\\mydir";
CString patterns = "*.doc;abc*.xls";
CStringArray paths;
search_sequence files(dir, patterns, recls::RECURSIVE);
for(search_sequence::const_iterator b = files.begin(); b != files.end(); b++) {
paths.Add((*b).c_str());
}
It'll find all .doc files, and all .xls files beginning with abc in C:\mydir or any of its subdirectories.
I haven't compiled this, but it should be pretty close to the mark.

Answer 5

CString strNextFileName , strSaveLog= "C:\\mydir";
Find.FindFile(strSaveLog);
BOOL l = Find.FindNextFile();
if(!l)
MessageBox("");
strNextFileName = Find.GetFileName();
Its not working. Find.FindNextFile() returning false even the files are present in the same directory``