alternative to fstat ?

[solarisss]

I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.
I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

[Joachim Schmitz]

"solarisss" <sa**************@gmail.comschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:d6**********************************@s19g2000 prg.googlegroups.com...

>I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.
I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

OT here, but in POSIX you'd have stat() (which would save you the fopen())
and access() (which should be much cheaper as it doesn't have to fill the
entire struct stat).

Bye, Jojo

[Richard Tobin]

In article <fj**********@online.de>,
Joachim Schmitz <jo**@schmitz-digital.dewrote:

>OT here, but in POSIX you'd have stat() (which would save you the fopen())
and access() (which should be much cheaper as it doesn't have to fill the
entire struct stat).

I doubt access() would be significantly cheaper since it still has
to do a system call and get the inode of the file.

-- Richard
--
:wq

[Joachim Schmitz]

"Richard Tobin" <ri*****@cogsci.ed.ac.ukschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:fj***********@pc-news.cogsci.ed.ac.uk...

In article <fj**********@online.de>,
Joachim Schmitz <jo**@schmitz-digital.dewrote:

>>OT here, but in POSIX you'd have stat() (which would save you the fopen())
and access() (which should be much cheaper as it doesn't have to fill the
entire struct stat).

I doubt access() would be significantly cheaper since it still has
to do a system call and get the inode of the file.

It is significantly cheaper on a system I frequently work with.

Bye, Jojo

[SM Ryan]

solarisss <sa**************@gmail.comwrote:
# I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.
# I think fstat is too costly for this.
# Is there any better way for the same ?

stat information is not generally stored as part of the directory;
getting inode information generally generally requires a random
disc access. Some file systems might allow store inodes to improve
reading them, but that would be implementation dependent.

--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
There are subtler ways of badgering a witness.

[Thomas Maier-Komor]

solarisss schrieb:

I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.
I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

if the files are located in few common directories, fstatat might be an
option on Solaris. Don't know about other systems...

- Thomas

[Kenneth Brody]

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

>
"solarisss" <sa**************@gmail.comschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:d6**********************************@s19g2000 prg.googlegroups.com...

I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

OT here, but in POSIX you'd have stat() (which would save you the fopen())
and access() (which should be much cheaper as it doesn't have to fill the
entire struct stat).

Well, if you have a file handle to pass to fstat(), I think we can
pretty much agree that the file exists. (Even if POSIX is OT here.)

:-)

And, if I recall, a discussion in the past noted that a failed access()
call doesn't necessarily mean the file doesn't exist. (For example,
you may simply not have permission to check for the existence.) Also,
there was a discussion about some sort of "cryptographic filesystem"(?)
in which the existence of a file cannot be determined.

--
+-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------+
| Kenneth J. Brody | www.hvcomputer.com | #include |
| kenbrody/at\spamcop.net | www.fptech.com | <std_disclaimer.h|
+-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------+
Don't e-mail me at: <mailto:Th*************@gmail.com>

[Joachim Schmitz]

"Kenneth Brody" <ke******@spamcop.netschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:47***************@spamcop.net...

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

>>
"solarisss" <sa**************@gmail.comschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:d6**********************************@s19g200 0prg.googlegroups.com...

>I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

OT here, but in POSIX you'd have stat() (which would save you the
fopen())
and access() (which should be much cheaper as it doesn't have to fill the
entire struct stat).

Well, if you have a file handle to pass to fstat(), I think we can
pretty much agree that the file exists. (Even if POSIX is OT here.)

:-)

Oops...

And, if I recall, a discussion in the past noted that a failed access()
call doesn't necessarily mean the file doesn't exist. (For example,
you may simply not have permission to check for the existence.) Also,

Very true, so you would have to check errno in case access() returns a -1.

printf("%s does%s exist\n", filename, ((access(filename) == -1) && (errno==
ENOFILE))? "n't":"");

The same is true for stat BTW(). And for fstat() resp. the open() it needs.

Bye, Jojo

[Kenneth Brody]

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

>
"Kenneth Brody" <ke******@spamcop.netschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:47***************@spamcop.net...

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

[... use fstat() to check for file existence ...]

Well, if you have a file handle to pass to fstat(), I think we can
pretty much agree that the file exists. (Even if POSIX is OT here.)

:-)

Oops...

And, if I recall, a discussion in the past noted that a failed access()
call doesn't necessarily mean the file doesn't exist. (For example,
you may simply not have permission to check for the existence.) Also,

Very true, so you would have to check errno in case access() returns a -1.

printf("%s does%s exist\n", filename, ((access(filename) == -1) && (errno==
ENOFILE))? "n't":"");

The same is true for stat BTW(). And for fstat() resp. the open() it needs.

(I'm not sure why we're discussing POSIX here, but...)

What if the file doesn't exist in a directory to which you do not
have the proper permissions? I believe the error will be EPERM
(or, at least, not ENOFILE), and you will display "does exist".

The point is, an error other than ENOFILE does not imply that the
file does exist. I believe the same holds true for stat() et al.
The only thing you can reliably check for is whether you can open
the file, by seeing what fopen() returns. (Yes, you can use
something like access() to see if you have permission to a file
_at_the_time_you_call_access()_, but you have race conditions to
take into account.)

--
+-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------+
| Kenneth J. Brody | www.hvcomputer.com | #include |
| kenbrody/at\spamcop.net | www.fptech.com | <std_disclaimer.h|
+-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------+
Don't e-mail me at: <mailto:Th*************@gmail.com>

[Keith Thompson]

solarisss <sa**************@gmail.comwrites:

I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.
I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

Since fstat() is defined by POSIX, I suggest that comp.unix.programmer
would provide better answers to your question.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) <ks***@mib.org>
Looking for software development work in the San Diego area.
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[Joachim Schmitz]

"Kenneth Brody" <ke******@spamcop.netschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:47***************@spamcop.net...

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

>>
"Kenneth Brody" <ke******@spamcop.netschrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:47***************@spamcop.net...

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

[... use fstat() to check for file existence ...]

Well, if you have a file handle to pass to fstat(), I think we can
pretty much agree that the file exists. (Even if POSIX is OT here.)

:-)

Oops...

And, if I recall, a discussion in the past noted that a failed access()
call doesn't necessarily mean the file doesn't exist. (For example,
you may simply not have permission to check for the existence.) Also,

Very true, so you would have to check errno in case access() returns
a -1.

printf("%s does%s exist\n", filename, ((access(filename) == -1) &&
(errno==
ENOFILE))? "n't":"");

ENOENT, not ENOFILE

>The same is true for stat BTW(). And for fstat() resp. the open() it
needs.

(I'm not sure why we're discussing POSIX here, but...)

Because ANSI/ISO C doesn't have fstat(), so the thread was OT from it's very
beginning
8-)

What if the file doesn't exist in a directory to which you do not
have the proper permissions? I believe the error will be EPERM
(or, at least, not ENOFILE), and you will display "does exist".
The point is, an error other than ENOFILE does not imply that the
file does exist. I believe the same holds true for stat() et al.

OK, make it this then:
printf("%s %s exist\n", filename, ((access(filename) == -1) && (errno==
ENOENT))? "doesn't":"may");

The only thing you can reliably check for is whether you can open
the file, by seeing what fopen() returns. (Yes, you can use
something like access() to see if you have permission to a file
_at_the_time_you_call_access()_, but you have race conditions to
take into account.)

The OP was looking for an alternative to fstat() to check for the existence
of a file, that request seems entirly unneccessary, as fstat() requires the
file to have been open()ed first, hence proving that it exists and is
accessible.

To bring it back to topicallity, how about this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>

/*
* return 1 if file could be opened, proving it's existence, 0 otherwise,
* which is not a secure sign that the file doesn't exist!
*/
int faccess(char *filename)
{
FILE *fp;
/* mode got to be "r" or "r+", anything else would create it */
fp=fopen(filename, "r");
if (fp)
fclose(fp);

return fp?1:0;
}

/*
* returns 0 if filename does not exist, 1 if it exists and -1 if unsure
* i.e. if couldn't be opened for reading, but this could be due to
permissions
* to the file or some component of the file's path
*/
int fexist(char *filename)
{
errno=0;
(void)faccess(filename);
perror("");
switch (errno)
{
case 0: return 1;
case ENOENT: return 0;
default: return -1;
}
}

Bye, Jojo

[Chris Torek]

>"solarisss" <sa**************@gmail.comschrieb im Newsbeitrag

>news:d6**********************************@s19g200 0prg.googlegroups.com...

>>I have thousands of files whose exitence needs to be checked.
I think fstat is too costly for this.
Is there any better way for the same ?

In article <fj**********@online.deJoachim Schmitz
<jo**@schmitz-digital.dewrote:

>OT here, but in POSIX you'd have stat() (which would save you the fopen())
and access() (which should be much cheaper as it doesn't have to fill the
entire struct stat).

Using access() is usually the wrong approach, although this is not
the place to discuss why.

In this case, the best approach is probably to read the directory
(or directories) in which those "thousands of files" might be
stored, and then do your own in-memory lookups ... but this too is
off-topic, because ANSI C does not even support "read a directory"
type operations.
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W) [phone]
email: forget about it http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html
Reading email is like searching for food in the garbage, thanks to spammers.