Checking if a file is a directory or just a file

Question

I m writing a program to check if something is a file or is a directory  Is there a better way to do it than this    include  lt stdio h gt    include  lt sys types h gt   include  lt dirent h gt   include  lt errno h gt   int isFile const char  name        DIR  directory   opendir name        if directory    NULL             closedir directory        return 0             if errno    ENOTDIR             return 1             return -1     int main void        const char  file      testFile       const char  directory              printf  Is  s a file   s  n   file         isFile file     1     Yes     No          printf  Is  s a directory   s  n   directory         isFile directory     0     Yes     No          return 0

User · Answer

Yes  there is better  Check the stat or the fstat function

User · Answer

You can call the stat   function and use the S ISREG   macro on the st mode field of the stat structure in order to determine if your path points to a regular file    include  lt sys types h gt   include  lt sys stat h gt   include  lt unistd h gt   int is regular file const char  path        struct stat path stat      stat path   amp path stat       return S ISREG path stat st mode       Note that there are other file types besides regular and directory  like devices  pipes  symbolic links  sockets  etc  You might want to take those into account

User · Answer

Normally you want to perform this check atomically with using the result  so stat   is useless  Instead  open   the file read-only first and use fstat    If it s a directory  you can then use fdopendir    to read it  Or you can try opening it for writing to begin with  and the open will fail if it s a directory  Some systems  POSIX 2008  Linux  also have an O DIRECTORY extension to open which makes the call fail if the name is not a directory   Your method with opendir   is also good if you want a directory  but you should not close it afterwards  you should go ahead and use it

User · Answer

Use the S ISDIRmacro   int isDirectory const char  path       struct stat statbuf     if  stat path   amp statbuf     0         return 0     return S ISDIR statbuf st mode

[c] Checking if a file is a directory or just a file

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