Creates a new directory. If the underlying file system supports security on files and directories, the function applies a specified security descriptor to the new directory.

To specify a template directory, use the CreateDirectoryEx function.

To perform this operation as a transacted operation, use the CreateDirectoryTransacted function.

Syntax

BOOL WINAPI CreateDirectory(
  __in      LPCTSTR lpPathName,
  __in_opt  LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpSecurityAttributes
);

Parameters

lpPathName [in]

The path of the directory to be created.

There is a default string size limit for paths of 248 characters. This limit is related to how the CreateDirectory function parses paths.

To extend this limit to 32,767 wide characters, call the Unicode version of the function and prepend "\\?\" to the path. For more information, see Naming a File.

lpSecurityAttributes [in, optional]

A pointer to a SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES structure. The lpSecurityDescriptor member of the structure specifies a security descriptor for the new directory. If lpSecurityAttributes is NULL, the directory gets a default security descriptor. The ACLs in the default security descriptor for a directory are inherited from its parent directory.

The target file system must support security on files and directories for this parameter to have an effect. (This is indicated when GetVolumeInformation returns FS_PERSISTENT_ACLS.)

Return Value

If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError. Possible errors include the following.

Remarks

Some file systems, such as the NTFS file system, support compression or encryption for individual files and directories. On volumes formatted for such a file system, a new directory inherits the compression and encryption attributes of its parent directory.

An application can obtain a handle to a directory by calling CreateFile with the FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS flag set. For a code example, see CreateFile.

For backward compatibility purposes, CreateDirectory does not apply Windows 2000 inheritance rules when you specify a security descriptor in lpSecurityAttributes. To support inheritance on current versions of Windows, functions that query the security descriptor of this object may heuristically determine and report that inheritance is in effect. See Automatic Propagation of Inheritable ACEs for more information.

Examples

For an example, see Retrieving and Changing File Attributes.

Requirements

See Also

CreateDirectoryEx

CreateDirectoryTransacted

CreateFile

Creating and Deleting Directories

Directory Management Functions

RemoveDirectory

SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES

SECURITY_INFORMATION

Send comments about this topic to Microsoft

Build date: 11/12/2009