Listing the Files in a Directory

The following example calls FindFirstFile, FindNextFile, and FindClose to list files in a specified directory.

#include <windows.h>
#include <tchar.h> 
#include <stdio.h>
#include <strsafe.h>

void DisplayErrorBox(LPTSTR lpszFunction);

int _tmain(int argc, TCHAR *argv[])
{
   WIN32_FIND_DATA ffd;
   LARGE_INTEGER filesize;
   TCHAR szDir[MAX_PATH];
   size_t length_of_arg;
   HANDLE hFind = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE;
   DWORD dwError=0;
   
   // If the directory is not specified as a command-line argument,
   // print usage.

   if(argc != 2)
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("\nUsage: %s <directory name>\n"), argv[0]);
      return (-1);
   }

   // Check that the input path plus 3 is not longer than MAX_PATH.
   // Three characters are for the "\*" plus NULL appended below.

   StringCchLength(argv[1], MAX_PATH, &length_of_arg);

   if (length_of_arg > (MAX_PATH - 3))
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("\nDirectory path is too long.\n"));
      return (-1);
   }

   _tprintf(TEXT("\nTarget directory is %s\n\n"), argv[1]);

   // Prepare string for use with FindFile functions.  First, copy the
   // string to a buffer, then append '\*' to the directory name.

   StringCchCopy(szDir, MAX_PATH, argv[1]);
   StringCchCat(szDir, MAX_PATH, TEXT("\\*"));

   // Find the first file in the directory.

   hFind = FindFirstFile(szDir, &ffd);

   if (INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE == hFind) 
   {
      DisplayErrorBox(TEXT("FindFirstFile"));
      return dwError;
   } 
   
   // List all the files in the directory with some info about them.

   do
   {
      if (ffd.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)
      {
         _tprintf(TEXT("  %s   <DIR>\n"), ffd.cFileName);
      }
      else
      {
         filesize.LowPart = ffd.nFileSizeLow;
         filesize.HighPart = ffd.nFileSizeHigh;
         _tprintf(TEXT("  %s   %ld bytes\n"), ffd.cFileName, filesize.QuadPart);
      }
   }
   while (FindNextFile(hFind, &ffd) != 0);
 
   dwError = GetLastError();
   if (dwError != ERROR_NO_MORE_FILES) 
   {
      DisplayErrorBox(TEXT("FindFirstFile"));
   }

   FindClose(hFind);
   return dwError;
}


void DisplayErrorBox(LPTSTR lpszFunction) 
{ 
    // Retrieve the system error message for the last-error code

    LPVOID lpMsgBuf;
    LPVOID lpDisplayBuf;
    DWORD dw = GetLastError(); 

    FormatMessage(
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER | 
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM |
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS,
        NULL,
        dw,
        MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT),
        (LPTSTR) &lpMsgBuf,
        0, NULL );

    // Display the error message and clean up

    lpDisplayBuf = (LPVOID)LocalAlloc(LMEM_ZEROINIT, 
        (lstrlen((LPCTSTR)lpMsgBuf)+lstrlen((LPCTSTR)lpszFunction)+40)*sizeof(TCHAR)); 
    StringCchPrintf((LPTSTR)lpDisplayBuf, 
        LocalSize(lpDisplayBuf) / sizeof(TCHAR),
        TEXT("%s failed with error %d: %s"), 
        lpszFunction, dw, lpMsgBuf); 
    MessageBox(NULL, (LPCTSTR)lpDisplayBuf, TEXT("Error"), MB_OK); 

    LocalFree(lpMsgBuf);
    LocalFree(lpDisplayBuf);
}

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Build date: 11/12/2009

Tags : code


Community Content

Gideon7
Console apps need to use the OEM codepage

Note: The above example when compiled for 8-bit strings (LPCSTR) will display incorrectly if a file's name contains characters outside of the 7-bit ASCII character set. And FindFirstFile will fail if argv[1] contains such characters. Console applications use the OEM codepage, not the ANSI codepage. The workaround is to build the example with UNICODE (LPCWSTR). Or call SetFileApisToOem() and use CharToOem(argv[i]) for each argv argument

Ditto the use of the global array __argv. See also setlocale(LC_ALL, ".OCP")

Update for East-Asian Users: After I posted the above information my Chinese friends have informed me that the OEM code page might not be used by the console window in certain East-Asian language encodings provided in the MUI edition of Windows XP. If (for example) the user switches to MUI=Chinese Simplified, the console switches to the Chinese ANSI code page 936 (simplified Chinese GBK encoding). In this case the console is using the ANSI code page, not the OEM code page 437, so the above code will work as designed (ironically enough).


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