Recursive file search using C++ MFC?

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

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 2

There is an old Dr Dobbs article that gives a custom CFileFindDriver class for this application. (Also talks about the classic recursion pattern using CFileFind.)

Answer 3

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 4

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 5

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 6

@crashmstr --?what is nd represents on this piece of code dirs.InsertAt(0,nd + "\.");????