How do you get a list of files currently in a directory??

I have a program which saves time stamped files into time stamped
directories.

When I want to read these files, I get the current date and check for the
existence of the directory using....

while (!(_chdir(dirname)) == 0)
{reduce the directory name (time) and check again}

This method quickly finds the last directory but I don't know anything about
the contents of the directory.

I thought it would be easy to load the contents of this directory into a
list which could be used to open files.
I have been using dir command for years and took it for granted that there
is a function to read directory contents but I can't seem to find any easy
way to do this.

How can directory contents be read?
Is there a function or class?
The only thing I can think of is to write the filenames to a database as
they are being written and then check for their existence in a directory.

Any ideas would be appreciated.
Bob

re: How do you get a list of files currently in a directory??

Rob_S wrote:
[color=blue]
> I have a program which saves time stamped files into time stamped
> directories.
>
> When I want to read these files, I get the current date and check for the
> existence of the directory using....
>
> while (!(_chdir(dirname)) == 0)
> {reduce the directory name (time) and check again}
>
> This method quickly finds the last directory but I don't know anything
> about the contents of the directory.
>
> I thought it would be easy to load the contents of this directory into a
> list which could be used to open files.
> I have been using dir command for years and took it for granted that there
> is a function to read directory contents but I can't seem to find any easy
> way to do this.
>
> How can directory contents be read?
> Is there a function or class?[/color]

Not in standard C++. The _chdir() function you're using above isn't a
standard C++ function either. So you have to resort to system-specific
functions (For a POSIX compliant system, they would e.g. be opendir(),
readdir(), closedir()), which are best discussed in a newsgroup about the
operating system/compiler/library you are using.

re: How do you get a list of files currently in a directory??

Rolf Magnus wrote:[color=blue]
> Rob_S wrote:[/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
> > How can directory contents be read?
> > Is there a function or class?[/color]
>
> Not in standard C++. The _chdir() function you're using above isn't a
> standard C++ function either. So you have to resort to system-specific
> functions[/color]

Or a portable library, like boost::filesystem. (Which is mostly
off-topic here,
but www.boost.org has enough documentation).
See also the FAQ about the standard library and non-standard libraries.

HTH,
Michiel Salters