C faster way to check if a directory exists

Question

I\'m using opendir function to check if a directory exists. The problem is that I\'m using it on a massive loop and it\'s inflating the ram used by my app.

What is t

Answer 1

You could call mkdir(). If the directory does not exist then it will be created and 0 will be returned. If the directory exists then -1 will be returned and errno will be set to EEXIST.

Answer 2

I would use stat(), if available.

Answer 3

It sounds like you have a memory leak. Calling opendir should not inflate the RAM of your app as long as you remember to always call closedir after successfully opening a directory. Also, make sure you are freeing any buffers you allocated to compute the directory name.

Answer 4

Consider using stat. S_ISDIR(s.st_mode) will tell you if it's a directory.

Sample:

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

...
struct stat s;
int err = stat("/path/to/possible_dir", &s);
if(-1 == err) {
    if(ENOENT == errno) {
        /* does not exist */
    } else {
        perror("stat");
        exit(1);
    }
} else {
    if(S_ISDIR(s.st_mode)) {
        /* it's a dir */
    } else {
        /* exists but is no dir */
    }
}
...

Answer 5

I prefer using access()

if (0 != access("/path/to/possible_dir/", F_OK)) {
  if (ENOENT == errno) {
     // does not exist
  }
  if (ENOTDIR == errno) {
     // not a directory
  }
}

If you ensure a trailing / in the directory name, this works perfectly.