On Windows is there an interface for Copying Folders?

Question

I want to copy folder A and paste to desktop.

I am currently using C++ so preferably an OO interface if available.

Answer 1

(assuming Windows)

Use can use ShFileOperation (or IFileOperation::CopyItem on Vista). Max.

Answer 2

For a platform agnostic solution, I'd suggest Boost::filesystem. That link is basically the reference material. There is a copy_file method that copies a file from one location to another.

On Windows, the desktop is a special folder:

// String buffer for holding the path.
TCHAR strPath[ MAX_PATH ];

// Get the special folder path.
SHGetSpecialFolderPath(
    0,       // Hwnd
    strPath, // String buffer.
    CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY, // CSLID of folder
    FALSE ); // Create if doesn't exists?

Answer 3

Use this

bool CopyDirTo( const wstring& source_folder, const wstring& target_folder )
{
    wstring new_sf = source_folder + L"\\*";
    WCHAR sf[MAX_PATH+1];
    WCHAR tf[MAX_PATH+1];

    wcscpy_s(sf, MAX_PATH, new_sf.c_str());
    wcscpy_s(tf, MAX_PATH, target_folder.c_str());

    sf[lstrlenW(sf)+1] = 0;
    tf[lstrlenW(tf)+1] = 0;

    SHFILEOPSTRUCTW s = { 0 };
    s.wFunc = FO_COPY;
    s.pTo = tf;
    s.pFrom = sf;
    s.fFlags = FOF_SILENT | FOF_NOCONFIRMMKDIR | FOF_NOCONFIRMATION | FOF_NOERRORUI | FOF_NO_UI;
    int res = SHFileOperationW( &s );

    return res == 0;
}

Answer 4

Here's an example using SHFileOperation:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776887%28VS.85%29.aspx#example

Here's a quick hack without it:

#import <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {

    system("robocopy \"C:\\my\\folder\" \"%userprofile%\\desktop\\\" /MIR");
    return 0;
}

Answer 5

it works

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    system("xcopy C:\\Users\\Elmi\\Desktop\\AAAAAA\ C:\\Users\\Elmi\\Desktop\\b\ /e /i /h");
    return 0;
}

Answer 6

Starting with Visual Studio 2015 you can use std::filesystem::copy which is even platform independent since it is available in implementations supporting >= C++17.

#include <exception>
#include <experimental/filesystem> // C++-standard filesystem header file in VS15, VS17.
#include <iostream>
namespace fs = std::experimental::filesystem; // experimental for VS15, VS17.

/*! Copies all contents of path/to/source/directory to path/to/target/directory.
*/
int main()
{
    fs::path source = "path/to/source/directory";
    fs::path targetParent = "path/to/target";
    auto target = targetParent / source.filename(); // source.filename() returns "directory".

    try // If you want to avoid exception handling then use the error code overload of the following functions.
    {
        fs::create_directories(target); // Recursively create target directory if not existing.
        fs::copy(source, target, fs::copy_options::recursive);
    }
    catch (std::exception& e) // Not using fs::filesystem_error since std::bad_alloc can throw too.
    {
        std::cout << e.what();
    }
}

Change the behaviour of fs::copy with std::filesystem::copy_options. I've used std::filesystem::path::filename to retrieve the source directory name without having to type it manually.