How can I check if a directory exists?

Question

How can I check if a directory exists on Linux in C?

Answer 1

You can use opendir() and check if ENOENT == errno on failure:

#include <dirent.h>
#include <errno.h>

DIR* dir = opendir("mydir");
if (dir) {
    /* Directory exists. */
    closedir(dir);
} else if (ENOENT == errno) {
    /* Directory does not exist. */
} else {
    /* opendir() failed for some other reason. */
}

Answer 2

Use the following code to check if a folder exists. It works on both Windows & Linux platforms.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    const char* folder;
    //folder = "C:\\Users\\SaMaN\\Desktop\\Ppln";
    folder = "/tmp";
    struct stat sb;

    if (stat(folder, &sb) == 0 && S_ISDIR(sb.st_mode)) {
        printf("YES\n");
    } else {
        printf("NO\n");
    }
}

Answer 3

You might use stat() and pass it the address of a struct stat, then check its member st_mode for having S_IFDIR set.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

...

char d[] = "mydir";

struct stat s = {0};

if (!stat(d, &s))
  printf("'%s' is %sa directory.\n", d, (s.st_mode & S_IFDIR)  : "" ? "not ");
  // (s.st_mode & S_IFDIR) can be replaced with S_ISDIR(s.st_mode)
else
  perror("stat()");

Answer 4

The best way is probably trying to open it, using just opendir() for instance.

Note that it's always best to try to use a filesystem resource, and handling any errors occuring because it doesn't exist, rather than just checking and then later trying. There is an obvious race condition in the latter approach.

Answer 5

According to man(2)stat you can use the S_ISDIR macro on the st_mode field:

bool isdir = S_ISDIR(st.st_mode);

Side note, I would recommend using Boost and/or Qt4 to make cross-platform support easier if your software can be viable on other OSs.

Answer 6

You may also use access in combination with opendir to determine if the directory exists, and, if the name exists, but is not a directory. For example:

#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <unistd.h>

/* test that dir exists (1 success, -1 does not exist, -2 not dir) */
int
xis_dir (const char *d)
{
    DIR *dirptr;

    if (access ( d, F_OK ) != -1 ) {
        // file exists
        if ((dirptr = opendir (d)) != NULL) {
            closedir (dirptr); /* d exists and is a directory */
        } else {
            return -2; /* d exists but is not a directory */
        }
    } else {
        return -1;     /* d does not exist */
    }

    return 1;
}