This is a simple example of how to use recursion to get a list of all the directories (folders) and file names within them. It also illustrates simple use if std::list, std::vector, std::string, std::cin and std::cout. It was compiled and tested with both VC++ 6.0 and Dev-C++ compilers on XP Pro.
// The next two lines are for VC++ 6.0 compiler. You should
// delete them if you compile it with a different compiler.
#include "stdafx.h"
#pragma warning(disable: 4786)
#include <io.h>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <list>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
// structure to hold a directory and all its filenames.
struct FILELIST
{
string path;
vector<string> theList;
};
void TransverseDirectory(string path, list<FILELIST>& theList)
{
struct _finddatai64_t data;
// First create the filename that will be use to initialize the find.
// "*.*" are wild card characters that tells the find function to return a
// list of all the files and directories. You can limit this if you wish
// to just file with specific extensions, for example "*.txt". If you do that
// then finder will not return any directory names.
string fname = path + "\\*.*";
// start the finder -- on error _findfirsti64() will return -1, otherwise if no
// error it returns a handle greater than -1.
long h = _findfirsti64(fname.c_str(),&data);
if(h >= 0)
{
FILELIST thisList;
// add empty FILELIST structure to the linked list argument
theList.push_back(thisList);
// get pointer to the FILELIST just added to the linked list above.
list<FILELIST>::iterator it = theList.end();
it--;
// set current path
(*it).path = path;
do {
if( (data.attrib & _A_SUBDIR) )
{
// make sure we skip "." and "..". Have to use strcmp here because
// some file names can start with a dot, so just testing for the
// first dot is not suffient.
if( strcmp(data.name,".") != 0 &&strcmp(data.name,"..") != 0)
{
// We found a sub-directory, so get the files in it too
fname = path + "\\" + data.name;
// recursion here!
TransverseDirectory(fname,theList);
}
}
else
{
// this is just a normal filename. So just add it to our vector
(*it).theList.push_back(data.name);
}
}while( _findnexti64(h,&data) == 0);
// close the find handle.
_findclose(h);
}
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
list<FILELIST> MyList;
string path;
cout << "Enter starting path ... ";
getline(cin,path);
TransverseDirectory(path,MyList);
list<FILELIST>::iterator it;
// now just display all the files
for(it = MyList.begin(); it != MyList.end(); it++)
{
vector<string>::iterator its;
for(its = (*it).theList.begin(); its != (*it).theList.end(); its++)
{
cout << (*it).path + "\\" + (*its) << endl;
}
}
cin.ignore();
return 0;
}